American diplomats attached to the United Nations headquarters in New York have failed in their attempt to get other countries such as Brazil, India, and Turkey to step up their funding of UN “peacekeeping” forces, the so-called blue helmets. As of now, the paramilitary organization faces a $220 million budget shortfall for the upcoming year.
UN “peacekeepers” are currently deployed in 14 trouble spots, mainly in Africa and the Middle East.
“Unfortunately, in a deeply dissatisfying and disappointing turn of events, every country decided that reform was good and right for the UN, but not for how it is financed,” said Ambassador Cherith Norman Chalet, the US representative for UN reform on Saturday.
Back in the 1990s, the U.S. Congress capped the United States’ share of UN “peacekeeping” at 25 percent. President Barack Obama waived that cap during his administration, but President Trump, perhaps seeing much of the UN “peacekeeping” missions as wasteful, ineffective, and unnecessary, has reinstituted the cap.
The UN’s budget calls for America to pay 27 percent of “peacekeeping” activities. America is, by far, the largest contributor to the UN, funding 22 percent of the total operating budget. Japan is next at just under 10 percent. The world’s most populous nation — and soon to be the world’s largest economy — funds just under eight percent of UN activities.
Even so, the UN still has the temerity to claim that the United States owes it more than $1.3 billion in back payments.
Amazingly, some UN members claim that the United States is, somehow, getting a discount, since a 2000 deal negotiated by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke resulted in a drop in the percentage that the United States was responsible for from 30 percent down to 27 percent in “peacekeeping” and from 25 percent to 22 percent of total expenditures.
“The lack of agreement on a 25% ceiling will cause the organization to continue to face a 3% shortfall in its peacekeeping budget as the United States will pay no more than 25% of peacekeeping expenses, again a less than ideal outcome,” Chalet said.
Here’s an idea: Let’s stop funding this globalist organization altogether.
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In 2018, the UN’s General Assembly issued a total of 27 condemnations of nations for various actions that the UN considered nefarious in one way or another. Twenty-one of them were against the State of Israel, mainly for its attempts to defend itself against Hamas and its “abuse” of Palestinians. The United States got its annual condemnation, sponsored by Cuba for “the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United State of America against Cuba.”
North Korea, Russia, Syria, Iran, and Myanmar were also condemned by the UN General Assembly, one time each. Ridiculously, serial human-rights abusers such as China, Pakistan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Somalia were not condemned even one time by the UN in 2018.
The obvious bias against Israel and the membership of blatant human rights offenders on the UN’s Human Rights Council caused America to withdraw from the Council earlier this year.
With UN Ambassador Nikki Haley set to step down next week, Trump’s nominee Heather Nauert is expected to keep up the administration’s criticism of the UN. But, upon seeing the UN’s patently absurd biases, mismanagement, and abuse of the United States’ goodwill, some GOP congressmen have floated the idea to not replace Haley at all.
In October, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky tweeted, “@realDonaldTrump, we the undersigned Members of Congress respectfully request that you consider replacing Ambassador Nikki Haley with…Nobody.” The tweet called attention to Alabama Representative Mike Rogers’ American Sovereignty and Restoration Act, which would repeal the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 and, effectively, get the United States out of the UN.
The UN’s original mission called for the maintenance of international peace and safety. It has far outgrown that mission and is attempting to set itself up as some sort of seat of global government. But the truth is, the UN needs the United States much more than the United States needs the UN. The UN, with its climate-change fear mongering and obvious political biases, is not an organization that deserves respect. Without U.S. involvement, it would probably quickly go the same route as the League of Nations — and good riddance.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump got big applause with promises to cut funding for certain United Nations programs. Candidate Trump often stated that, when elected, he would be “canceling billions in climate-change spending for the United Nations.”
Imagine the cheers in 2020 should he announce that he intends to withdraw from the UN altogether.
