Among sites that could be negatively affected by the United States’ plan to leave the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is the Serpent Mound in Peebles, Ohio. It was already on a tentative list to be designated World Heritage Sites — recognition that may never come.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. withdrew from UNESCO because it “works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy.”

One is forced to wonder if Bruce or her bosses understand the United States is, in fact, part of the global community; and that the United Nations — an INTERNATIONAL organization — necessarily cannot have an agenda that is “America First.” In recognizing World Heritage Sites, UNESCO highlights locations that have UNIVERSAL value. And what we have in Ohio is a treasure of exactly that magnitude.

The 1,300-foot long earthen Serpent Mound was built thousands of years ago and is the largest of its kind in the world. It is emblematic of an ancient culture of moundbuilders and thousands of similar sites across Ohio, only a few of which remain.

Ohio History Connection, which manages the Serpent Mound, says on its website “World Heritage status has the potential to elevate local and international awareness about the site’s value, further encourage communities to protect and invest in its preservation and increase potentially beneficial tourism to the site.”

At risk is tourist traffic, some increased legal protection and acknowledgment that a site in Ohio SHOULD join the ranks of the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China and other World Heritage sites. Removing ourselves from the effort to understand and appreciate global cultures is a mistake. It doesn’t put America “first.” It removes us from the conversation.