Trump Spoils the UN Party

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NEW YORK, November 14 (C-Fam) In a move that has shocked the UN diplomatic corps, the U.S. government voted against more than a dozen UN resolutions this week because they were deemed ideological, wasteful, or contrary to the Trump administration’s America First foreign policy. The resolutions are typically adopted unanimously, without a vote.

“The U.S. is focused on getting the UN back to basics, delivering on its core mission to maintain international peace and security,” U.S. diplomats said this week in multiple meetings where they called for votes against UN resolutions. The administration is expected to vote against dozens more by the end of the month.

The Trump administration is systematically voting against UN resolutions that stray into political issues unrelated to preserving peace and security, like climate, gender, and migration. “We will not lend our name to resolutions that recycle the same divisive or irrelevant issues year after year,” U.S. diplomats explained.

The administration took issue with spending countless hours negotiating resolutions that they called “performative” and “symbolic.”  It also criticized UN resolutions for failing to produce “tangible results that improve the life of the common citizen.”

“The UN exists to help countries solve problems—not to impose global governance,” they warned, adding that in the future the U.S. would put an end to the practice. “It’s time for bold reform. American Taxpayers deserve to see results. So do the people of the world.”

A representative of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the entire European Union, said the U.S. move “undermined” the work of the United Nations. He urged countries to oppose the U.S. and repeatedly emphasized that the European Union would defend the “shared values, principles, and long-standing agreed language” of the UN resolutions.

The administration denied that voting against UN resolutions indicated a lack of support of the United Nations project. Repeating Trump’s talking point that the United Nations still has “great potential” and that “the United States was a driving force behind the UN’s creation and remains its largest contributor.” But U.S. diplomats explained that reforming the United Nations was essential to protect its credibility.

“To be clear, the United States is not walking away from the multilateral system. We are determined to make it work as it was intended. That means moving away from bloated, ideological multilateralism and toward practical reforms that make this institution leaner, more effective, and accountable to the nations that fund it. We welcome partners willing to take that journey with us.”

“The United States stands ready to work with any nation that shares our goal: to restore the UN’s founding purpose and ensure it delivers real results for the nations and people it serves. We stand ready to cooperate on shared concerns, solutions, and reforms.”

One issue on which the U.S. is likely to find support from a wide range of countries, is ending the use of UN resolutions to promote abortion, transgender ideology, and other controversial social policies. A U.S. delegate explained that that U.S. could not support language on sexual and reproductive health without any caveats for this reason.

“UN agencies have used such terminology to promote abortion rights, transgender rights for children, gender ideology and other controversial issues that are not universally agreed human rights. For this reason, we are not willing to adopt any resolution that includes language on sexual and reproductive health without express caveats re-affirming sovereign prerogatives on such issues. We urge other delegations to this body to question why you would support this effort as well,” a U.S. diplomat said.

This statement was echoed widely in the room. Over a dozen countries from Africa, Asia and the Americas expressed reservations on the same terminology.

 

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