Bye Bye UN and Where’s Tulsi?

Bye Bye UN and Where’s Tulsi?

Bye Bye UN?

The president signed an executive order withdrawing US support for 66 international organizations. My initial reaction was “sixty-six?” Marco Rubio’s State Department issued a statement “The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.” Sounds like “woke” and “diversity” to me. The withdrawal from the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (with its “net zero” madness) in line the previous administration actions including leaving the Paris Accord and the president’s calling of climate change a “hoax.” 

Of course, the usual suspects are complaining. A former White House climate advisor groused “This Administration is forfeiting our country’s ability to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies, and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country.” That’s exactly the point. Let the others waste their scare resources making Al Gore and the climate change industry rich. The White House’s own statement verified this: “These withdrawals will end American taxpayer funding and involvement in entities that advance globalist agendas over U.S. priorities, or that address important issues inefficiently or ineffectively such that U.S. taxpayer dollars are best allocated in other ways to support the relevant missions.” Rand Paul tweeted his approval “While the President and I have our occasional difference, we agree far more than we disagree. A good example, defunding left wing, globalists groups is a policy I wholeheartedly support.” I am surprised the president didn’t have a sarcastic tweet thanking Paul for his “wholehearted support.”

Actually US financial support for the total amounts to only $130 million. Some of the organizations are within the UN general budget and are not directly funded by its members, so US withdrawal is likely in participation rather than funding. Half are not in the UN and so they will receive no more US financial support. UN Secretary General Antonio Gueterres has said that regardless the US is still legally obligated to pay its UN dues. “Assessed contributions to the UN regular budget and peacekeeping budget, as approved by the General Assembly, are a legal obligation under the UN Charter for all member states, including the US.” Of course the president has said that it is his intention to stop funding organizations whose mission and actions are contrary to that of his administration. So will the US actually cut its funding to the UN and withdraw its ambassador? Currently, it is the organization’s largest contributor, funding 22 percent of its budget. But it has not paid its dues and owes the UN $1.5 billion. If it did stop the payments it would lose its vote in the General Assembly and on the Security Council. Then the next steps should be to recall our ambassador and expel the UN from New York. It rightly belongs in Brussels.

Also I guess Trump’s “Board of Peace” could be his first step in replacing the UN. The only problem is that such a board only exists to curry favor with the president and once he leaves office, he likely takes the $1 billion entry fees with him and the organization dies. If the president were serious about peace he would continue to demand that NATO strengthens itself and instead of leaving the UN, demand a change in charter where no nation has veto powers.

Where is Tulsi?

Speaking of international, where is Tulsi? Gabbard is supposed to be the director of national intelligence but was left out of the planning for the actions taken in Venezuela. While the rest of the president’s national security team was planning the operation, Gabbard posted pictures of herself on a Hawaiian beach. Seems like CIA director Radcliffe is involved more than Gabbard. Word is that Rubio did not want her involved. I wonder if the president is still fuming from Gabbard’s testimony that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon prior to the US strike? Recall that Trump said “I don’t care what she said.” Given the exclusion, some people would resign. But apparently Gabbard likes the gig and will stay on until Trump fires her.