New U.S. U.N. envoy warns allies: back us or we'll take names

[January 28, 2017]  By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, pledged on Friday to overhaul the world body and warned U.S. allies that if they do not support Washington, then she is "taking names" and will respond.

Haley made brief remarks to reporters as she arrived at the world body's headquarters in New York to present her credentials to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"Our goal with the administration is to show value at the U.N. and the way that we'll show value is to show our strength, show our voice, have the backs of our allies and make sure that our allies have our back as well," Haley said.

"For those that don't have our back, we're taking names, we will make points to respond to that accordingly," added Republican President Donald Trump's U.N. envoy.

Haley, who was South Carolina's Republican governor when Trump picked her for the post, has little foreign policy and no U.S. federal government experience.

French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre and British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said they looked forward to working with Haley. The United States, Britain and France, along with Russia and China, are permanent veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council.

After her meeting with Guterres, a U.S. official said they had "a good and productive conversation about ways they can work together to reform the U.N."

Haley told reporters, "Everything that's working, we're going to make it better, everything that's not working we're going to try and fix, and anything that seems to be obsolete and not necessary we're going to do away with."

According to a draft executive order published by The Daily Beast, Trump wants a committee - including his secretary of state, attorney general and director of national intelligence -to carry out a one-year review of U.S. funding to international organizations with the aim of almost halving voluntary funding.

Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley presents her credentials to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S., January 27, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

A senior U.S. administration official said on Friday that no such executive order was "expected at this time."

The United States is the largest contributor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of the $5.4 billion core U.N. budget and 28 percent of the $7.9 billion U.N. peacekeeping budget. These are assessed contributions - agreed by the U.N. General Assembly - and not voluntary payments.

U.N. agencies, such as the U.N. Development Programme, the children's agency UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the U.N. Population Fund, are funded voluntarily.

Last year, Trump took to Twitter to disparage the 193-member world body after the United States abstained in a Dec. 23 U.N. Security Council vote, allowing the adoption of a resolution demanding an end to settlement building by U.S. ally Israel.

Trump, who had called on President Barack Obama's administration to veto the resolution, warned that "things will be different" at the United Nations after he took office on Jan. 20.

(Writing by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)

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