United States President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations is one of the world body’s strongest critics in the US Congress as a representative from New York State. She has described the UN as a “corrupt, defunct and paralyzed institution” and called for the US to cut funding to the organization.
“I stand ready to advance President Donald J. Trump’s restoration of America First peace through strength leadership on the world stage on Day One at the United Nations,” Stefanik said in her acceptance remarks on Nov. 11, 2024.
Stefanik, a Republican, was re-elected to her fifth term in the House of Representatives on Nov. 5, representing a wide swath of New York State, including the Albany capital region and North Country. If she becomes the US envoy to the UN, she will have to vacate the Congressional seat.
Trump said of her: “She will be an incredible Ambassador to the United Nations, delivering Peace through Strength and America First National Security policies!”
She is widely acknowledged as a strong, vocal supporter of Trump and his “America First” agenda. But before she joined his camp, she was voted into the US Congress in 2014 at age 30, making her the youngest woman in the House of Representatives at the time. Stefanik, now 40, will most likely be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate to lead US diplomacy in the UN. Trump may even be able to jump that step in her confirmation, given reports that the president-elect is trying to skirt Senate confirmations.
While Stefanik may have no foreign policy or diplomacy experience, much like Nikki Haley, a former Trump-appointed ambassador to the UN, the negotiation skills Stefanik has used to canvas support in Congress could be transferred to the UN, where she would be expected to get Security Council backing for draft resolutions in the 15-member body. She would sit as one of the five veto-wielding members, namely Britain, China, France and Russia.
As a public representative in Washington, Stefanik has been a loud echo chamber for Israel in Congress, countlessly condemning the Biden-Harris administration for its handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza as well as threatening to cut funding to the UN for what she calls its “antisemitic” stand against Israel.
In December 2023 in a Congressional hearing focusing on antisemitism on American academic campuses, Stefanik asked Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, if “calling for the genocide of Jews” violate the institution’s rules or code of conduct: “yes or no.” (Stefanik asked the presidents of Harvard and MIT the same question.)
Magill’s awkward, legally laden response eventually forced her to resign. Stefanik soon after visited Israel and spoke to the Knesset, the country’s parliament, making her the first high-ranking member of the House to visit Israel since the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas, her office says.
“Today, I stand before you not just as a leader in the United States Congress, but as a lifelong admirer, supporter, and true friend of Israel and the Jewish people,” she said in her speech. “There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel — aid that was duly passed by the Congress. . . . to dither and hide while our friends fight for their lives. No excuse. Full stop.”
Stefanik is backed by some of the influential Jewish Republicans who have donated generously to her campaign. According to OpenSecret, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that monitors donations and contributions to politicians, pro-Israel organizations are the top three of Stefanik’s donors. American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, a pro-Israel lobbyist group, was her top donor during her 2023-2024 re-election campaign.
Stefanik repeatedly criticized the Biden-Harris team long before the Oct. 7 massacre. She faulted the White House for resuming funding to UNRWA immediately after the Democrats took office, reversing Trump’s cuts during his first term of presidency.
Her criticism of the UN became more pronounced in the last two years. In February 2023, she condemned the Security Council for considering a United Arab Emirates-drafted resolution backed by the Palestinian Authority demanding that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The UAE, which represented the Arab countries in the Security Council, did not put the draft to a vote but instead pushed for a presidential statement on the “continued Israeli settlement activities,” saying they were “dangerously imperiling the viability of a two-state solution.”
Stefanik also co-led a bipartisan bill in the House mandating the US secretary of state to conduct oversight on the educational materials created by the Palestinian Authority and used by UNRWA, the main provider of primary and secondary education in the Palestinian territories, to ensure the curriculum was clear of anti-Israeli messaging. The legislation, cited as the Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act, was also passed in the Senate. It requires the secretary of state to produce an annual report on the “textbooks, leaflets, pamphlets, magazines, and other instructional materials” used in UNRWA-run schools.
That was not the only piece of legislation co-led by Stefanik regarding UNRWA, which is also the main UN entity providing health care services and food charity to registered Palestinian refugees in the Mideast. She is a current sponsor of the Uncovering UNRWA’s Terrorist Crimes Act, which is currently in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. If passed, the legislation would direct the secretary of state to submit to Congress a report on funding provided by the US to UNRWA. (Such financing has been frozen since March 2024, based on Israeli allegations that some UNRWA staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attack.)
Israel’s UN envoy, Danny Danon, welcomed her nomination. “At a time when hate and lies fill the halls of the UN, your unwavering moral clarity is needed more than ever. Wishing you success in standing firm for truth and justice,” he tweeted.
In June 2024, Stefanik voted to pass a bill for fiscal year 2025 that allocates billions of dollars in more funding to Israel and prohibits more US government spending to UNRWA, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the UN Commission of Inquiry Against Israel. The bill also called to end funding the UN regular operating budget, resulting in “savings of $761.6 million,” Stefanik’s website says. But US contributions to the UN’s regular budget are based on mandated assessments that the US is required to pay as a member of the organization.
Experts say that with the Trump administration, Israel will be more emboldened to continue its war in Gaza, now in its second year. During his presidential election campaign, Trump asked Israel to “finish the job.” But observers say that Israel is banking on Stefanik’s pro-Israel stance to buffer its influence in the Security Council.
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Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
For the UN to succeed in convincing the USA president Trump and his team who wants to make America grate again and a free world from wars and destructions, and do it in 4 years with hard work, working 24/7. T
This mean the United Nations with all its capacity of a work force of more than 60000 thousand and a UN Sustainable Goals and Climate Solutions that can solve the worlds problems very fast if given 10 trillion dollars to work with.
The UN has in Brindisi and Valencia a computer bank capacity to solve world problems and more if the workforce is also working 24/7 and back to offices and the field to show the American president Trump or any American president that the UN can be the organisation created in 1947 TO DO THE JOB.
But to be able to perform this presentations the UN under UNSG must provide the best and likeable staff member that can present the solutions to the USA President and the world . I suggest a likeable women with team to present the world solutions for us all.
The future of the United Nations is at all time to be proactive and show of results that can give peace and prosperities and not peacekeeping missions who’s old as the UN it self. Therefore the UN must at all time take the power to end old mission and create solutions and peace as no missions should take longer time than 5 years to solve .
The UN has nothing to loose and must take this challenging time as the leading organisations created for the only purpose to prevent any conflicts to wars and miseries for us all.
Unfortunately, it is bad news after bad news for international affairs, the UN, the Palestinians, Ukrainians, and anyone else who is not in the pocket of the incoming President. Good luck to those Ambassadors who have to work with this lady.
We do hope that America First peace will be a reality for all and not for some only. The Biden-Harris administration was a disaster in handling the war in Ukraine or in the Middle-East because of its double standards and lack of respect for human rights. How many American vetoes were used on UN Security Council resolutions to protect Israel during the last year? That is not leadership nor a respect of international laws nor fondamental human rights. Wait and see, history will judge the Trump-Vance government as it has done about the very disastrous Biden-Harris government which has left the world community in total limbo.