Haley: US won’t fund more than 25 percent of UN peacekeeping budget

The United States will no longer provide more than a quarter of the funding for the United Nations’s peacekeeping efforts, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told the organization Wednesday.

“The United States has long been the largest financial contributor to U.N. peacekeeping by far. That will not change,” Haley said.

But Haley cautioned that “peacekeeping is a shared responsibility.”

“With shared responsibility comes shared burdens and shared costs. One country should not shoulder more than one-quarter of the U.N. peacekeeping budget.”

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As a result, she said, the U.S. will not pay more than 25 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget moving forward. The U.S. will work with other members of the organization to ensure the budgetary changes are made in a “fair and sensible manner.”

The U.N. General Assembly is responsible for determining the peacekeeping budget. 

The U.S. is the largest financial contributor to the U.N.’s peacekeeping operation, covering roughly 28 percent of its $8 billion in costs. The next largest contributor is China, which funds 10.25 percent of the costs.

The peacekeeping efforts focus on areas rife with conflict by deploying troops and other resources. The U.S. has only a few dozen troops committed.

The Pentagon said late last year that despite its desire to reduce its financial commitment to the program, it would still bolster training and equip peacekeepers.

President Trump, a frequent critic of the U.N., has long bashed U.S. payments to the organization as too costly, and on several occasions threatened to cut off funding.

Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill last week that cuts multilateral assistance by $253 million compared to last year’s funding level.