Vote with US at UN or We’ll Cut Your Aid

The move to make foreign aid conditional on political support follows a US decision to cut tens of millions of dollars in assistance to Palestinian refugees, a cut made in retaliation for Palestine’s sponsorship of UN resolutions denouncing US President Donald Trump’s controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and now the US Ambassador wants to apply a similar principle to decisions about aid to other needy countries, Chicago Tribune reported.

“It is the opinion of the US mission to the UN that all US foreign assistance should be reevaluated to ensure that taxpayers dollars are spent to advance US interests, not to fund foreign legacy programs that provide little or no return on investment,” according to the 53-page memo, which was reviewed by Foreign Policy.

It added that the Palestinian aid cuts “should serve as a fulcrum from which we use our foreign assistance leverage and measure its impact.”

The memo "America First Foreign Assistance Policy" and marked sensitive, echoes Trump's oft-repeated claim that the world takes advantage of US largesse while opposing American goals.

The proposal also underscores the dramatic shift in Haley's own stance on foreign assistance; she began her term pledging to preserve humanitarian aid for Palestinian and Syrian civilians and to oppose "slash and burn" cuts at the United Nations.

The document is part of a broader interagency review of US foreign assistance initiated by Trump, who appealed to Congress during his State of the Union address to “pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to America’s friends.”

The memo recognizes that support for US positions at the UN is not the only condition for aid, and that in many cases it must be “disregarded in favor of US security or economic needs.”

Some of the largest recipients of US aid, including Iraq, which votes against the US 60 percent of the time, and Egypt, which “often has a more antagonistic approach to the United States in the UN than Russia, China and Venezuela”, would likely be spared, according to the memo.

But it said that “the autopilot nature of many US foreign assistance efforts is leaving far too much ‘low-hanging fruit’ that should be either eliminated or leveraged into greater support at the UN and elsewhere.”

The paper proposes subjecting to review nearly 40 countries that received a total of $100 million in US assistance in 2016, but that vote against the United States 54 percent of the time. It notes that South Sudan, one of the top 10 recipients of US aid in 2016, "votes for US interests at the United Nations a paltry 47.9% of the time."

The document primarily targets development programs, including infrastructure, education and energy projects, even though those kinds of overseas assistance programs are often explicitly designed to advance US foreign policy interests. Development and education investments help curb radicalism, while energy and development assistance boosts economic growth and stability, lowering the chance for conflict.

Haley's staff cite three US-funded projects worth reconsidering in view of the recipient countries' frequent lack of support for US: A $3.1 million job training program in Zimbabwe; a $6.6 million climate change program in Vietnam; and a $4.9 million school construction program in Ghana. The memo tallied $580 in total US support for those three countries in fiscal year 2016, but saw support for US positions in the UN of only 54 percent of the time (Ghana), 38 percent (Vietnam) and 19 percent (Zimbabwe).

"None voted with us on Jerusalem, even though none have a strong domestic constituency compelling the vote," the memo added.

Haley's office suggested that congressional support for such a policy would strengthen its impact, but said US diplomats could get better voting outcomes if they underscored the threat of losing aid money.

"If our warnings fail, then, as the President said, 'we would save a lot of money,'" the memo added.

Some conservatives have long bridled at the fact that countries that receive US aid routinely vote against the United States in the UN General Assembly.

"I've been of the view that votes in the United Nations should cost people, cost countries that vote against us," John Bolton, a former US Ambassador to the United Nations and rumored next national security adviser, recently told Fox News.

Bolton recalled that former US Secretary of State James Baker said that Yemen's 1990 vote against the authorization of force against the then Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein would be the most expensive vote they ever cast.

"And we did cut their foreign aid," Bolton said, adding that "And there needs to be more of that."

Haley, who has frequently sought Bolton's counsel on UN matters, agreed.

"For decades, the US has been by far the world's single-largest provider of foreign assistance," her staff wrote in the memo, underlining that "Numerous countries have taken advantage of this assistance while routinely opposing us in the UN."

The memo said there is an "historic reflex" among American administrations to continue providing assistance year after year to legacy aid programs, adding that "It should stop."

"To walk away in a casual and cavalier manner from decades of US policy on humanitarian assistance is profoundly depressing," Eric Schwartz, the President of Refugees International, said, underlining that "It's wrong morally and it wrong geostrategically."

He stressed that such a posture could undermine US soft power around the world.

"The goodwill that the US has in the world has largely been the result of the perception of international good citizenship," he stated, noting that "To walk away from that is shameful."