US envoy urges Trump not to cut UN funding and lose cloutAssociated Press, Jan 13, 2017, Edith M. Lederer
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power urged the Trump administration on Friday not to cut funding to the United Nations, warning that this would be detrimental to U.S. interests and benefit countries like China and Russia.
“We lead the world, in part, by leading at the United Nations,” Power stressed at her final press conference before leaving the U.S. Mission on Jan. 20 when Barack Obama’s presidency ends and Donald Trump is inaugurated as president.
Supporters of Israel in the U.S. Congress have introduced a number of bills to cut off U.N. funding to protest Obama’s decision to allow the adoption of a Security Council resolution in December condemning Israel’s construction of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for their future state.
The United States pays 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular operating budget and 25 percent of the budget for its 16 far-flung peacekeeping missions where over 100,000 troops and police are deployed.
"We are in the room as a credible leader within the U.N., which would become extremely hard to do if we were not contributing our share of funding," Power said.
She said a funding cut would leave the United States with its hands tied behind its back and strip the U.N. of resources to support conflict mediation or humanitarian operations or new Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' "major effort" to resolve conflicts in Cyprus and South Sudan.
"This would be extremely detrimental to U.S. interests," she said, and would also penalize nations trying to advance international peace and security, development, human rights and dignity.
"For there to be less of that work done in the world is going to make for a messy world," Power warned.
"And the only beneficiaries of our pullback of funding from the U.N. would be countries like China and Russia who ... certainly in some debates would greatly prefer that the United States was fighting and advocating here and pushing policies with less standing," she said.
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