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.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Stefanik, when asked about her plans for reforming the U.N. if confirmed, told Fox News Digital that “Elise Stefanik is deeply honored to earn President Trump’s nomination to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. She looks forward to earning the support of her Senate colleagues and working through the confirmation process. Once confirmed, she stands ready to push for needed reform and advance President Trump’s America first, peace through strength national security agenda on the world stage on day one at the United Nations.”
To aid the reform effort, Hugh Dugan, former National Security Council adviser on international organizations and U.S. diplomat at the world body, created DOGE-U.N., which he says mimics the “methodology and purpose” of DOGE.
While Dugan said that DOGE-U.N. is “a standalone resource,” he explained that he hopes it can be a tool for collaboration and “save [DOGE] some of the upfront analytical work” about which outlays need to be examined more closely.
Dugan is working to “identify some practicable early wins” that show “the potential for making the U.N. more efficient and cost-saving.” This includes reviewing the U.N. procurement manual “to avoid corruption and malfeasance” and “make sure that there’s a sense of consequences attached to all procurement matters on behalf of the American taxpayer.” Dugan said that DOGE-U.N. will also look into “where and how the U.N. has been evolving into its own Deep State, and more or less ignoring and overlooking the member states’ desires and will and need for efficiency and accountable resource management.”
The U.S. “can’t be passive shareholders” in the U.N., Dugan said. “We need to develop better competency in Washington, better guidance, more dedicated resources to these dry matters, because if the U.S. doesn’t show up with these questions and concerns and criticisms, no other country will.”
Though Dugan says that DOGE-U.N. is “trying to stick with attacking inefficiencies,” he said there is the possibility of addressing funding to programs that are “impossible to support from a policy point of view.” To that end, Dugan said that “strong accountability” for the secretary-general’s use of U.S. resources is vital to ensure the U.N. does not “play a shell game with our contributions and continue to fund even those things we don’t like.”
While U.S. departments have independent inspectors general who search for waste and fraud, Dugan noted that the secretary-general directs the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which means that the secretary-general can choose whether the findings of U.N. investigations should be “publicized or kept quiet.”
Peter Gallo, formerly an investigator with the OIOS, told Fox News Digital that the independent oversight function lacks independent oversight and said that the investigative function should be taken “out of the hands of the U.N.” Gallo said that “in the immediate term,” he would suggest making investigations “subject to independent oversight, and every dollar they spent subject to review.”
The extent to which employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have been affiliated with terror organizations is especially concerning to Gallo, who says investigations into the issue have been neither transparent nor independent.
Dugan said he believes that stepping back from the organization would be counterintuitive, adding that China is “more than willing to swoop in and fill whatever leadership vacuum we don’t fill and they will use that opportunity to promote their own hegemonic ambitions.”
Dugan said he hopes that DOGE-U.N.’s findings will “serve the administration” and “help them identify valuations that have been overlooked, and principally to help us create the resource that the world needs so that China cannot abscond with it.”
A recent topic of debate at the U.N. illustrates the divergence of the organization from U.S. interests.
In January 2024, the U.S. ended contributions to UNRWA until March 2025 after evidence emerged that members of the agency participated in the attacks of Oct. 7, which killed 1,200, including 45 Americans.
In October, the Israeli Knesset banned UNRWA from operating within Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, given mounting evidence of Hamas infiltration in UNRWA.
In December, a resolution came before the Fifth Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, which is responsible for budgetary and financial matters. The resolution suggested that the International Court of Justice create an advisory opinion on Israel’s UNRWA ban, citing Israel’s “obligations…to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies” and “of basic services and humanitarian development assistance.”
The U.S. voted against the resolution. However, on a related vote about funding the estimated $298,900 required to carry out the resolution, the U.S. simply abstained.
When asked about the discrepancy in its votes, a U.S. Department of State spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the U.S. “has consistently demonstrated opposition to this request for an advisory opinion, including voting against the relevant General Assembly resolution. The budget is a separate matter. The role of the U.N. General Assembly’s Fifth Committee is not to second-guess mandates authorized by other U.N. bodies.”
Bayefsky told Fox News Digital that the State Department’s comment represents a “twisted, indefensible strategy” by the Biden administration. “When it comes to spending our money via the U.N.’s budget committee, allegedly the U.S. role is not to ‘second-guess.'”
