United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley followed up on her threat to “take names” Tuesday after the release of the State Department’s annual report detailing the voting records of member nations. “This is not an acceptable return on our investment,” Haley said in a statement.
Haley, upon learning that several of the ten member nations who voted with the United States the least were still receiving U.S. aid, was not satisfied.
“The American people pay 22 percent of the UN budget – more than the next three highest donor countries combined. In spite of this generosity, the rest of the UN voted with us only 31 percent of the time, a lower rate than in 2016. That’s because we care more about being right than popular and are once again standing up for our interests and values.”
According to the report, the other member nations voted with the U.S. 31 percent of the time last year — 10 percent less often than the year before.
Among those nations that voted with the U.S. the least, there were several which are still receiving monetary aid. Zimbabwe, for example, received $58 million in aid but didn’t vote with the U.S. once. Syria and South Africa also received tens of millions in aid despite rarely voting with the U.S.
But Haley said that may all change now that she has the data to determine who really is in the U.S.’s corner.
“When we arrived at the UN last year, we said we would be taking names, and this list of voting records speaks for itself,” she said. “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.”