"This is all so misleading," tweeted Bathsheba Crocker, who under President Barack Obama headed the State Department office responsible for international organisations such as the UN "The US fights hard, together with other countries, every year to cut UN budget & regularly does. This is neither new nor a US 'decision.' "
Negotiations over the UN budget were months in the making. A US official said US pressure helped bring about cuts to peacekeeping missions in Darfur and Haiti, freeing money to create a new special envoy for Burma to focus on returning the Rohingya people to their homes. It also involved a number of more esoteric reforms such as a flexible workplace initiative and pension fund oversight to increase accountability.
"These cuts are positive news for the US-UN relationship," said Peter Yeo, head of advocacy for the United Nations Foundation, which supports UN causes, noting they were not imposed unilaterally but in negotiations with member states.
"The cuts demonstrate that the UN is capable of tightening its belt to reflect budget constraints in donor capitals, including the US." he added. "Ambassador Haley has formed a real partnership for reform with the Secretary-General."
The budget was finalised on Monday, days after Haley and Trump suggested that the US would link US aid to countries that supported them in significant votes. That rankled several countries that did not side with the US in a 128-to-9 vote condemning Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
"This reflects a bias in the Administration that we see elsewhere in its foreign policy," said John Glaser, director of foreign policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. "Namely, that the way to elicit compliance from both adversaries and allies is to browbeat them, threaten them and economically coerce them. No one in the White House seems to understand how to use the carrots of international diplomacy. It's all sticks."
Glaser said the Administration's approach is isolating the US from its allies even though US leadership at the UN can be helpful in pursuing American interests.
"They are throwing this UN budget cut out as red meat for Trump's base, which loves the idea that Trump is a successful businessman imposing efficiency on wasteful government elites and anti-American international institutions," he said.
When Haley first became ambassador, she said the US would be looking for ways to make the organisation more efficient, and could cut US contributions to causes and agencies it considers hostile to US interests, such as those that have levelled a disproportionate share of criticism on Israel.
Mark Dubowitz, head of the nonpartisan Foundation for Defence of Democracies, called that a legitimate use of US resources and power.
"It's been quite successful" as a tactic, he said. "There were 66 countries that opposed, abstained or didn't show up for the UN vote on Jerusalem. Those were historic numbers. It worked. It should not be a shock the US has decided to play power politics at the UN, like all other countries."
