WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is set to announce this week that it will reengage with the much-maligned U.N. Human Rights Council that onetime President Donald Trump withdrew from roughly three years ago, U.S. officials said Sunday. The decision makes another Trump-era is removed from multilateral organizations and agreements.

U..S. officials say Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a senior U.S. envoy in Geneva will announce on Monday that Washington will return to the Geneva-based body as election observers with an heart toward searching referendum as a full member. The decision is likely to draw criticism from republican lawmakers and countless in the pro-Israel community.

Trump drew out of the world body’s main human rights authority in 2018 due to its disproportionate focus on Israel, which has received by far the largest number of critical council resolutions against any country, as well as the number of authoritarian countries among its members and because it failed to meet an extended list of reforms demanded by then-U.S. Ambassador to the United People Nikki Haley.

In addition to the council’s lingering focus on Israel, the Trump administration took issue with the body’s membership, which currently includes China, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia and Venezuela, all of which have been accused of human rights abuses.

One major U.S. official said the Biden administration reputed the council must still reform but that the best way to promote change is to “engage with it in a principled fashion.” The official said it can be “an important forum for those fighting tyranny and transgression around the world” and the U.S. vicinity is ready and willing to” ensure it can live up to that potential.”

That official and three others familiar with the decision were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly ahead of the proclamation, and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Although the U.S. will have only nonvoting observer status on the council through the end of 2021, the officials said the administration intends to seek one of three full member fannies — currently held by Austria, Denmark and Italy — from the “Western Europe and other moods group” that come up for election later this year.

The U.N. General Assembly starts the final preference in a vote that generally makes situate in October every year to fill vacancies in three-year words at the 47 -member-state council.

U.S. commitment with the council of ministers and the its precede, the U.N. Human Rights Commission, has been something of a political football between Republican and Democratic organisations for decades. While recognizing its shortcomings, Democratic directors have tended to want a seat at the counter while Republican have recoiled at its criticism of Israel.

Trump’s withdrawal from the UNHRC, nonetheless, was one of a number of U.S. retrenchments from the international community during his four years in agency. He also walked away from the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran nuclear cope, the World Health Organization, U.N. education and cultural organization, UNESCO, and various arms-control treaties. Trump likewise threatened to withdraw from the International Postal Union and regularly hinted at pulling out of the World Trade Organization.

Since taking office last month, President Joe Biden has rejoined both the Paris accord and the WHO and has signaled interest in returning to the Iran deal as well as UNESCO.

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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Read more: time.com