Trump's U.N. ambassador pick Elise Stefanik should look to save taxpayers millions

"Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY., will soon appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to seek confirmation for her role in President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Several former diplomats who spoke to Fox News Digital say that an immediate concern for an incoming U.N. ambassador should be reigning in U.S. expenditures at the world body. Outflows to the organization grew from $11.6 billion in 2020 to $18.1 billion in 2022, when the U.S. covered one-third of the total U.N. budget.

A former senior U.S. diplomat told Fox News Digital on condition of anonymity that, with ‘many different tasks in front of her, [Stefanik] will need to be selective about what she really wants to pursue.’ The diplomat cited chief areas of concern as cronyism and corruption, and employing more Americans at the U.N.

He said the U.N. is ‘an organization that doesn’t align often with U.S. foreign policy,’ which makes it ‘kind of weird to be pouring in all this money,’ and then ‘seeing a lot of anti-American sentiment and support of causes that we take issue with.’

Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, called for Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, ‘to halt funding for the U.N. that is totally antithetical to American interests. This immediate cost-saver of billions ought to be low-hanging fruit. At the General Assembly, the United States has but one vote of 193 member states and is routinely and overwhelmingly outvoted by an undemocratic, anti-American, and anti-Israel mob on key issues. But as soon as we lose, we turn around and pay for all the lawfare and antisemitic schemes those very same resolutions concoct.’

‘DOGE - for which the money is the matter - should have no such inhibitions when it comes to taxpayer dollars being used to fund dangerous and lethal U.N. output,’ Bayefsky said. ‘The days of the United Nations as a global money-launderer for terrorists and antisemites dressed up as human rights experts and refugees need to stop right now.’..."