Amb. Haley threatened on Wednesday to cut off UN aid to all countries who voted in favor of a UN resolution on Trump's Jerusalem decision. It didn't w
Amb. Haley threatened on Wednesday to cut off UN aid to all countries who voted in favor of a UN resolution on Trump’s Jerusalem decision. It didn’t work.
Break out the burn book: US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley now has more than half of the world on her shit list after a less-than-great vote at the UN General Assembly.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AFP / Getty Images
Thursday’s meeting at the General Assembly was called after Haley used the US’s position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to veto a resolution in condemning Trump’s decision earlier this month to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Kena Betancur / AFP / Getty Images
All 14 other Security Council members, including the other four permanent members — the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France — and US allies like Japan and Sweden, voted in favor of the resolution.
Thanks to a US-led move more than 50 years ago, the General Assembly has the ability to take up issues of matters of international peace and security — normally the Security Council’s gig — if there’s no agreement between the Council’s permanent members. So that’s a bit of a “whoops” for the US there.
In the run-up to Thursday’s vote, Haley sent a letter around to all 192 members of the UN, warning that the US is “taking names” of who votes against it
Drew Angerer / Getty Images
“The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us,” read the letter, obtained by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
It…didn’t quite work.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AFP / Getty Images
While not quite as lopsided as predicted beforehand, the final result was a clear condemnation of the Trump decision. Many diplomats were reportedly unswayed by the vision of Trump as some kind of bizarro Santa Claus as depicted in Haley’s letter. The Canadian delegation actually reportedly changed their vote from a “no” in support of the US to abstaining on the vote.
To give Amb. Haley a hand in keeping track, here’s everyone who’s now totally on notice:
– Afghanistan
– Albania
– Algeria
– Andorra
– Angola
– Armenia
– Austria
– Azerbaijan
– Bahrain
– Bangladesh
– Barbados
– Belarus
– Belgium
– Belize
– Bolivia
– Botswana
– Brazil
– Brunei Darussalam
– Bulgaria
– Burkina Faso
– Burundi
– Cambodia
– Chad
– Chile
– China
– Comoros
– Congo
– Costa Rica
– Cote d’Ivoire
– Cuba
– Cyprus
– Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)
– Denmark
– Djibouti
– Doinica
– Ecuador
– Egypt
– Eritrea
– Estonia
– Ethiopia
– Finland
– France
– Gabon
– Gambia
– Germany
– Ghana
– Greece
– Greneda
– Guinea
– Guyana
– Iceland
– India
– Indonesia
– Iran
– Iraq
– Ireland
– Italy
– Japan
– Jordan
– Kazakhstan
– Kuwait
– Kyrgyzstan
– Laos
– Lebanon
– Liberia
– Libya
– Lichtenstein
– Luxembourg
– Madagascar
– Malaysia
– Maldives
– Mali
– Malta
– Mauritania
– Mauritius
– Monaco
– Montenegro
– Morocco
– Mozambique
– Namibia
– Nepal
– Netherlands
– New Zealand
– Nicaragua
– Niger
– Nigeria
– Norway
– Oman
– Pakistan
– Papua New Guinea
– Peru
– Portugal
– Qatar
– Republic of Korea (South Korea)
– Russia
– Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
– Saudi Arabia
– Senegal
– Serbia
– Seychelles
– Singapore
– Slovakia
– Slovenia
– Somalia
– South Africa
– Spain
– Sri Lanka
– Sudan
– Suriname
– Sweden
– Switzerland
– Syria
– Tajikistan
– Tanzania
– Thailand
– Tunisia
– Turkey
– United Arab Emirates
– United Kingdom
– Uruguay
– Venezuela
– Viet Nam
– Yemen
– Zimbabwe
Whew. Only Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Togo joined the US in voting against.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Everyone else either abstained or just conveniently happened to be out of the room as the vote went down. So there’re all cool in Haley’s book, apparently.
“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” Haley said before the vote, especially when it comes to paying its UN dues.”
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The US — as the richest country in the world and the host of the UN — currently pays about 22% of the UN budget. And as for the warning to the members that Trump would take the votes personally, it will remain to be seen whether he recalls it next time he speaks to anyone from the more than 100 countries he now apparently no longer likes.
Hayes Brown | BuzzFeed | 21 Dec 2017
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