The Trump administration has not been shy about its plans to cut the federal government’s size, spending, influence and control.
Among the specific targets is funding of the United Nations, including its abortion and climate change agendas, according to ForeignPolicy.com.
Last year, the U.N.’s Security Council issued a stunning resolution condemning U.S. ally Israel for building housing in disputed territory it won in the 1967 war initiated by its Arab neighbors.
Though it was just latest of many U.N. attacks on Israel, the overreach this time prompted a reaction, including calls to withdraw U.S. funding of the global body and even to drop membership and order it to vacate its properties on U.S. soil.
The U.N. also has adopted policies to override national law and advocate for abortion, routinely puts nations with questionable records on human rights, such as Angola and Senegal, on its Security Council, and threatens Americans’ constitutional rights through its Arms Trade Treaty and even parental rights through its Convention on the Rights of the Child, has not made it more popular among Americans.
A petition urges President Trump and Congress to remove the U.S. from the U.N.
“We further urge [President] Donald J. Trump and the Republican Congress to declare all United Nations resolutions, treaties and other explicit and implicit commitments to be no longer binding on the United States and violations of American sovereignty. … We urge President-elect Donald J. Trump and the Republican Congress to use all available means to encourage allies of the United States and Israel to withdraw from the United Nations and withhold all funding and official recognition from that organization,” it states.
The Trump administration plans for cutting federal spending will move forward, OMB chief Mick Mulvaney confirmed in a statement on Tuesday.
Trump’s executive order that directs the Office of Management and Budget to conduct a review and provide a plan to reorganize the executive branch departments and agencies “would have a de minimis impact on costs and revenues to the federal government,” he said.
The benefits are that the federal government would be “leaner, more effective, and more accountable by reorganizing, consolidating, and eliminating unnecessary components.”
ForeignPolicy.com quoted unidentified sources who said staff members at the State Department “have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for U.N. programs.”
It cited three sources who said Trump was retreating from programs to “keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs,” but there apparently was little evidence that those programs were primary targets.
The U.N. also seeks to curtail the human rights of Americans through its gun and child protection treaties, it ambitiously promotes abortion around the globe and is wholeheartedly behind the “global warming” agenda that seeks to redistribute the financial assets of the Western world.
The report said the budget proposal Trump will reveals later this week will include a 37 percent cut for the State Department.
“On March 9 in New York, U.S. diplomats in a closed-door meeting warned key U.N. members, including wealthy donors from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, to ‘expect a big financial constraint’ on U.S. spending at the United Nations,” the report said.
It said the cuts “would fall heaviest on U.N. programs, like peacekeeping, UNICEF, and the U.N. Development Programme, that are funded out of the budget of the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.”
Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told ForeignPolicy.com cuts of that magnitude would create “chaos.”
And he said other donors would “struggle” to fill the gap left if the U.S. no longer shoulders a majority share of the international group’s funding.
The report said the State Department was asked to try to find up to $1 billion in cuts in the U.N. peacekeeping budget, and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley “has already been undertaking a review of the U.N.’s 16 peacekeeping missions to see if she can find room for cuts.”
The U.S. pays more than a fifth of the U.N.’s $2.5 billion administrative budget, plus billions more for individual programs.
The report said U.N. diplomats and foreign dignitaries “say they expect the United States to seek to eliminate funding for some agencies unpopular with conservatives – including the U.N. Population Fund, which receives about $35 million a year from the United States for family planning programs [including abortion], and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
AÂ Dutch official already has started soliciting contributions for abortion in light of the U.S. plans.
Part of the controversy over the U.N. resolution against Israel was that the Obama administration refused to veto it, which it had the authority to do as a permanent member of the Security Council
Shortly after the resolution, Congress began considering a plan that would accomplish several of those objectives, including removing the United States from the U.N., banning any continued financial support, barring American military members from serving under U.N. command and removing the diplomatic immunity of U.N. officials.
The bill is the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2016, H.R. 193, sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.
According to the congressional description, it would repeal “the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 and other specified related laws.”
“The bill requires: (1) the president to terminate U.S. membership in the United Nations (U.N.), including any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body; and (2) closure of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations,” it explains.
“The bill prohibits: (1) the authorization of funds for the U.S. assessed or voluntary contribution to the U.N., (2) the authorization of funds for any U.S. contribution to any U.N. military or peacekeeping operation, (3) the expenditure of funds to support the participation of U.S. Armed Forces as part of any U.N. military or peacekeeping operation, (4) U.S. Armed Forces from serving under U.N. command, and (5) diplomatic immunity for U.N. officers or employees.”
Check out the Big List of leaders calling for the U.S. to defund the United Nations.
David Greenfield at FrontPage Magazine wrote: “The United Nations does only two things consistently and effectively: waste money and bash Israel. Sometimes it manages to do both at the same time.”
He pointed out that for its money, the U.S. gets a U.N. email system that was “used to distribute child pornography … U.N. staff members have smuggled drugs, attacked each other with knives and pool cues, not to mention a tractor.”
Greenfield also mentioned bribery cases.
Defunding is “something that we and every sane country should have done decades ago.”
“If you give money to the U.N., it will end up anywhere and everywhere except where it’s supposed to go. But defunding the U.N. isn’t enough. There is no reason for us to remain there at all.”
Also, 3oo scientists have written to President Trump asking him to pull the United States out of the global warming campaign that is being run by the U.N.
According to The Hill, the letter explains, “Since 2009, the U.S. and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic harm – with no environmental benefits.
“While we support effective, affordable, reasonable and direct controls on conventional environmental pollutants, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. To the contrary, there is clear evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful to food crops and other plants that nourish all life. It is plant food, not poison,” the letter says.
