Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said Tuesday the United Nations has not lived up to its founding mission but can be reformed through strong American leadership.
Stefanik, who testified at her Senate confirmation hearing to be President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, has long been a critic of the international body, once referring to it as a "den of antisemitism" and "apologist for Iran."
"I don’t think the U.N. has lived up to its founding mission [of] international peace and security," Stefanik told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It is imperative to ensure strong American leadership at the United Nations. I share President Trump’s vision of a U.N. reformed by strong America first peace-through-strength leadership and a return to its founding mission of promoting peace and security around the world."
The U.S. pays about one-fifth of the U.N.’s regular budget, and Stefanik was questioned repeatedly about American support for its multiple agencies, which tackle everything from health, education, and migration to human rights and nuclear proliferation.
"I also think being good stewards of U.S. taxpayer dollars, looking at the organizations within the U.N. system that work, that function, that are results-based, that are transparent, accountable and the American people support them, that they support our national security strategy versus the parts of the U.N. that I’m deeply concerned about that I think are very in need of reform," Stefanik said.
The U.S. owes the U.N. a total of $2.8 billion for its regular budget, peacekeeping budget, and tribunals, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Tuesday in a press briefing.
"Our tax dollars should not be complicit in propping up entities that are counter to American interests, antisemitic, or engaging in fraud, corruption, or terrorism," said Stefanik, who is expected to be confirmed without much Democrat opposition.
She said the U.S. could thwart growing Chinese influence on the international stage by increasing its presence at U.N.
"We need to have strong American leadership working with our allies to push back on this," Stefanik said. "China has made inroads in placing CCP [Chinese Communist Party] leaders and Chinese diplomats in positions as heads of various sub-U.N. agencies, but also at the most junior level."
Every session of the U.N. Human Rights Council devotes time to an agenda item regarding the "human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories," according to Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a member of the Foreign Relations committee. The other nine items on the council’s permanent agenda do not refer to any particular country or situation, especially those with documented human rights abuses, such as China, North Korea, Russia and Iran. Scott asked Stefanik how the U.N. can hold those nations accountable for such actions.
"Holding them accountable with our voice is very important," she said. "Speaking out, that was one of the lessons in the committee hearing with higher education with the colleges and universities."
Stefanik was referring to her role on the House Education and Workforce Committee in hearings last year that helped expose the lack of commitment by U.S. colleges and universities in combating on-campus antisemitism. The fallout from her grilling of the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology led to their resignations.
"When you speak out with moral clarity, the world and the American people listen," Stefanik said. "We need to ensure we have that moral clarity with our U.S. ambassador to the United Nations every single day."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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