When UN Ambassador Nikki Haley first warned that there would be an accounting for the failure of UN members to vote with the US, it was over Israel. But this report goes well beyond Israel.
When Nikki Haley started as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, she warned she’d be “taking names” of countries that do not have “our back.” Now, a newly released annual State Department report on voting records at the world body will tell her who exactly is in America’s corner – and who is not.
The report found that U.N. member states only voted with the United States 31 percent of the time last year on resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly – down 10 percent from the prior year. Reacting to the new report, Haley said in a statement that it was not an “acceptable return” on the United States’ investment and suggested this could factor into aid decisions.
“Either way, this is not an acceptable return on our investment. When we arrived at the UN last year, we said we would be taking names, and this list of voting records speaks for itself. President Trump wants to ensure that our foreign assistance dollars – the most generous in the world – always serve American interests, and we look forward to helping him see that the American people are no longer taken for granted.”
No other country has to put up with this. Aid from most countries does buy political support. But the United States has long been treated like a sucker. It hands out the most aid, yet repeatedly takes a beating at the UN. From the Republic of China crisis to the annual condemnation of the Cuban embargo, we take a beating and keep handing out cash.
According to the report, the country that voted least with the U.S. was Zimbabwe – having voted zero times with America. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) foreign aid explorer website, Zimbabwe received $58 million in aid for this year.
Rounding out the bottom 10 nations not aligned with the U.S. were: Burundi, which received $2.9 million in U.S. aid; Iran (no U.S. aid); Syria ($72 million); Venezuela ($230,000); North Korea (no U.S. aid); Turkmenistan ($200,0000); Cuba ($115,000); Bolivia ($115,000); and South Africa ($100 million). All figures are from the USAID explorer website.
Most of those are not too surprising. Most of them are officially or unofficially enemies of the United States.
The real problem kicks in with something like the Cuban embargo vote.
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