Stefanik paints a grim picture of a UN she wants to reform

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), President Donald Trump’s nominee to represent the U.S. at the United Nations, on Tuesday painted the international organization as a body beset by bias against Israel, nefarious Chinese influence and ineffective peacekeeping efforts.

But she argued the U.N. isn’t irredeemable and pledged that she’d help usher “strong American leadership” at the multilateral body.

Before a generally cordial panel of senators on the Foreign Relations Committee, the New York Republican said Washington could still thwart growing Chinese influence on the international stage by increasing its presence at the global forum.

“We need to have strong American leadership working with our allies to push back on this,” Stefanik said. “China has made inroads in placing CCP leaders and Chinese diplomats in positions as heads of various sub-U.N. agencies, but also at the most junior level,” she added, using the acronym for the Chinese Communist Party.

Stefanik said she’d strive to increase the number of U.S. citizens working within the United Nations system and work with colleges and universities to recruit early-career professionals to that end, calling it a “human capital strategy” to combat China.

She pledged to be a strong advocate for Israel, declaring that the spate of U.N. resolutions against Israel amid its conflict with the Palestinians shows the U.S. “is not meeting the mission of international peace and security.” She said she’d work to review the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon to review how it allowed Iran-backed proxy Hezbollah to rearm and regroup.

Stefanik also said she’d focus on reforming the U.N. system and ensuring that U.S. funding is “going to programs through the U.N. that work, that have a basis in the rule of law, that have a basis in transparency and accountability, and strengthen our national security and our partnerships.” She specifically called out the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main agency tasked with distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza, saying it turned a blind eye to local workers’ ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

UNRWA has pushed back on such claims from Stefanik and others, saying that reports that large numbers of staff participated in the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel were inaccurate.

The moderate Republican turned ardent Trump backer is generally expected to be easily confirmed and without much serious opposition from Senate Democrats who see her as less polemical than other nominees and broadly agree with her on the need to support Israel.

Democrats mostly kept their questions focused on policy, though there was a brief back-and-forth over a gesture from tech mogul and Trump ally Elon Musk at a Monday rally that was compared to a Nazi salute. They avoided questioning Stefanik on her positions on the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks, even after Trump pardoned thousands accused, and in some cases convicted, of storming the U.S. Capitol the night before.

It’s unclear whether Stefanik’s playbook will differ greatly from that adopted by Trump’s envoys to the U.N. in his first administration, in which the U.S. regularly lashed out at the body and pulled out of some groups, including the Human Rights Council.

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