Ambassador Waltz Defends UN Membership in Senate Hearing

In a recent hearing in the U.S. Senate, Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz defended U.S. membership in the global body even as he highlighted the Trump administration’s efforts to “reform” it.

On April 15, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing titled “Reforming the UN: Assessing U.S. Efforts and Priorities.” Waltz and Jeff Bartos, the U.S. representative to the United Nations for UN management and reform, presented before the committee as witnesses.

In his opening statement and throughout the hearing, Waltz criticized various UN policies, including “[pushing] costly ideological agendas from its 2030 agenda to the … failing Sustainable Development Goals.” However, he voiced support for the UN itself, claiming that “the UN has tremendous potential, but it needs to do its job. It needs to realize that potential.” He also claimed that “we need one place in the world where everybody can come and talk, and I want that to be right here in the United States.”

Of the senators who questioned Waltz and Bartos, Mike Lee (R-Utah) came the closest to questioning U.S. membership in the UN, noting that “reform efforts” resemble “putting lipstick on a pig” while the globalist body “demands that we relinquish sovereignty.” In response to Lee’s questioning, Waltz again defended UN membership, including by pointing to international regulatory regimes imposed by UN agencies that he claimed benefit the United States.

Get US Out!

During the hearing, Waltz declared his desire to “get the UN back to basics.” However, he would do well to recognize that the UN was originally founded as a nascent one-world government. Although President Donald Trump and his administration have advanced certain pro-American policies, including withdrawing the United States from dozens of international organizations and agreements, they have not questioned U.S. membership in the UN itself. Rather than continuing to support an international organization that fundamentally threatens American independence and the Founding Fathers’ recommended foreign policy of noninterventionism, Congress and the executive branch should support the DEFUND Act to Get US Out! of the UN once and for all.

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