Trump Cuts UN Budget by $285 Million; Step in “Right Direction”

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After dispatching a fringe United Nations bureaucrat to investigate “extreme poverty” in the richest nation in human history, the UN is about to get poorer. Following an overwhelming vote against America in the kleptocrat-controlled UN General Assembly, the Trump administration helped negotiate a $285 million reduction in the UN’s budget for the upcoming two-year period. That is a 5 percent decrease from the 2016-2017 budget, far less than the 50-percent reduction originally sought by Trump early in his administration. Still, the move, touted as a “big step in the right direction” by Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, was praised by supporters of the president, Republican lawmakers, and critics of the widely ridiculed “dictators club” from across the political spectrum. However, more than a few voices said that much more needs to be done to neutralize the threat posed by the UN to freedom, self-government, and the United States in particular.

The budget reduction was hailed in a statement as one among a “host of successes” by the U.S. State Department. “The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” said Ambassador Haley. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked. This historic reduction in spending — in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable UN — is a big step in the right direction. While we are pleased with the results of this year’s budget negotiations, you can be sure we’ll continue to look at ways to increase the UN’s efficiency? while protecting our interests.” The statement also celebrated the reduction in the UN’s “bloated management and support functions,” as well as instilling more discipline and accountability at the globalist Leviathan.

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Americans pay almost one fourth of the UN’s regular budget, more than 185 other countries combined. However, when it comes to the UN, tracking spending is extraordinarily complex, with multiple U.S. bureaucracies providing independent funding for multiple UN bureaucracies — numbers that will not be affected by the recently announced budget cuts. The UN’s overall budget is separate from its “peacekeeping” budget, for example. But that, too, was slashed, according to news reports, with the UN’s military budget facing cuts of more than $600 million. In total, estimates from the U.S. State Department show that American taxpayers have been pouring over $10 billion into the UN “system” each year, with much of that going to promote anti-American, anti-freedom extremism.

While U.S. officials celebrated, UN officials had a different spin on the budget negotiations. Unrepentant Communist Party operative Miroslav Lajcák, the president of the UN General Assembly, for example, proclaimed in a press release that “progress” would be measured by “the impact the United Nations makes on people’s lives.” “Our work is not yet done. We have more to do next year,” he said, touting the “Global Compact for Migration,” the totalitarian Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reforming the Security Council, and other items on the UN wish list. “These agenda items represent global challenges. And multilateralism is the tool we need to solve them.” Multilateralism is globalist-speak for undermining national sovereignty and self-government.

Commenting on the new budget, UN Director of Program Planning and Budget Johannes Huisman downplayed the cuts, which were even steeper than those proposed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a Socialist Party operative and globalist extremist linked to international communism. The cuts, Huisman said, were mostly for operating or “non-post” areas such as information technology and travel. Under the new budget, the UN will ensure that there is “value” for the massive amount of money being spent, he continued, without defining value. “This is a reassurance we can give to the tax-payers that no stone will be left unturned to make sure that the money is spent properly and ultimately benefits the world community in the areas where the UN is needed,” he said, again without elaborating on where he thought the UN was “needed.”

High-profile critics of the UN, though, had a different take. Former UN investigator Peter Gallo, for example, called the budget cuts “great news.” However, he also pointed out that “there is still a lot to do.” There are two aspects of the UN to keep in mind when thinking about the cuts, Gallo explained. The first is that the UN, when understood as the General Assembly of Member States, is “not significantly hurt by cutting the budget,” he said. “In terms of international budgets, $285 million is a drop in the ocean, and there are ways and means of making up the American shortfall from other contributors,” he said, adding that the states voting against America would not suffer any direct consequences from the cuts, though they will use it to attack America.

The other aspect to consider is the UN Secretariat, the bureaucracy that oversees it all. “There the budget cut has given the Secretary-General a real headache, because he lacks the strength of character, the managerial ability or the political support to make any savings at all,” Gallo told The New American. “The only thing the UN knows how too do is ‘administrate’ and spend — read ‘waste’ — millions upon billions of dollars of taxpayer money with absolutely no concern for where it came from, and no regard for the wishes of anyone other than themselves. A $285 million cut there is going to cause a great deal of weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and of course they will blame Trump, they will blame Israel, they will blame ‘climate change,’ they will blame anything and everything except themselves.”

However, none of this will solve the overarching problem. “Simply cutting the budget alone is like trying to reform an alcoholic by cutting his pocket money,” continued Gallo, who observed the UN’s corruption and incompetence firsthand while working as an internal investigator. “I believe it is even more important that pressure is brought to bear to reform the Organization. A large part of the problem is the lack of accountability and the lack of integrity in the Organization, combined with grossly overpaid salaries-for-life. The UN is not some superior entity intended to reign superior over the rest of the world, and the sooner the organization starts to understand that, the better.”

As UN critics were celebrating the news of the cuts, globalists, Islamists, and the Kremlin were fuming. Speaking to the Russian government-funded broadcaster RT, Kaveh Afrasiabi, the former adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiation team and author of the book UN Management Reform, blasted the Trump administration and said the cuts were definitely linked to the anti-American, anti-Israel vote days earlier surrounding the location of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. “Based on the statement read by Ambassador Haley, there is no doubt that there is a direct connection between that vote, which was a total embarrassment to the U.S., and the retaliation that has followed in a form of a big financial stab at the UN,” he told RT.

However, Afrasiabi, who has links to the globalist Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the cuts to the budget could have gone deeper. “There was a fear that this could be twice as bad, and on the bright side it’s not even close to what candidate Trump promised in terms of a 50 percent slash in the U.S.’s contribution to the UN,” he was quoted as saying in the report, blasting the White House’s “perverse Christmas gift to the world community.” Referring to Haley’s comments about it being a “step in the right direction,” Afrasiabi called it “a big step in a wrong direction, contrary to what Ambassador Haley said.” He also ludicrously claimed that the UN “saves millions of lives” and is “responsible for global peace and security.”

There has been some debate about whether the budget cuts were a retaliation over the General Assembly vote purporting to declare “null and void” the Trump administration’s decision to re-locate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, where Israel has its capital. Ahead of the vote, both Trump and Haley warned that anti-American votes would result in consequences, including a reduction in U.S. taxpayer largess. However, Trump has been exposing the UN since before he was elected, warning that it was not a friend to the United States or freedom. Shortly after taking office, Trump explored the possibility of slashing the UN budget by 50 percent, clipping the UN’s wings, withdrawing from certain international agreements, and more.

In 2017, Trump made several announcements that were perceived as fulfilling promises. For instance, he announced a withdrawal from the UN’s “Paris Agreement” on “climate change,” as well as a U.S. exit from UNESCO, the UN’s “education” and “culture” bureaucracy. However, as of now, the U.S. government remains inside both. Trump also cut funding to UN population-control functions and severed ties with a UN “migration” scheme purporting to play a role in setting U.S. immigration policy. For longtime critics of the dictators club, though, none of those measures come close to doing what is needed to protect U.S. liberty and sovereignty. For that, the only sustainable solution is a full U.S. withdrawal under the American Sovereignty Restoration Act (H.R. 193). While the trends are encouraging, Americans must keep the pressure on.

Photo: Veni/E+/Getty Images

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook. He can be reached at [email protected].