President-elect Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, said Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Trump’s pick for U.N. ambassador, “will have her work cut out” when it comes to U.N. reform. .
Bolton, now a Trump critic, argued in an opinion piece Thursday that one of the obstacles to successfully enacting reforms at the United Nations is State Department bureaucracy. He also argued that the United States should reassess its contributions to the 193-member organization and suggested some should be reduced.
“That burden will fall not only on the U.S. mission to UN components, but also on the State Department regional bureaus responsible for bilateral relations with the other 192 member states,” Bolton wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
“Over the past several decades, regional offices have found reasons not to participate, appealing for higher priority on numerous bilateral issues,” wrote Bolton, a former UN ambassador. “Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio will have to crack the whip if reforms are to succeed.”
Trump nominated Stefanik as his successor immediately after winning the 2024 presidential election, which requires Senate confirmation.
The New York Republican is a strong supporter of Israel and has criticized the United Nations for condemning the Jewish state’s military operation in Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Last September, she went after the diplomatic agency, claiming it was infected with “anti-Semitic corruption.”
The former National Security Advisor said current spending levels were “out of control” and called for the United States to reduce its contributions to the United Nations.
Countries pay two types of contributions to the United Nations: assessed contributions and voluntary contributions. In Bolton’s view, mandatory contributions to member states are “the amount of tax that other UN members impose on the United States.”
“That alone is reason enough to reject the concept of evaluation, because what matters in this institution is not our votes. “The only votes that matter are the Security Council votes (and vetoes), which are our main shield against the one-country-one-vote majority throughout the UN system,” he wrote in an op-ed.
“Our permanent seats on the Council and their votes are written into the UN Charter, and we can veto changes to the Charter,” he added. “Then there are essentially no potential negative consequences from terminating assessed contributions.”
Bolton, a defense hawk, argued that Stefanik and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s choice for secretary of state, should announce immediately after taking office that “the United States no longer accepts the concept of assessing contributions.” The United States will only pay voluntary contributions, “determined by evaluating the performance of each United Nations agency and program.”
He said this approach would enable UN programs to demonstrate their value through outcomes. Bolton warned that if the voluntary program fails to fulfill its mission, the United States will have to lower funding levels.
“UN agencies funded entirely by voluntary donations, such as the World Food Program (WFP), generally tend to perform better than those funded through evaluation,” Bolton wrote. “There is an incentive to maintain and improve performance because you have to prove your worth every year. “If voluntarily funded programs fail or falter, funding must be reduced accordingly.”
Bolton recommended that the United States withdraw from the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), which it officially rejoined in May of last year.
“Many other reforms are possible, but they would fall short of the power to unilaterally control our donations,” he wrote Thursday. “Plus, we need a much larger defense budget. Reducing our donations to the United Nations is a good start to finding the funds we need.”
