UN agrees to cut peacekeeping budget
The UN General Assembly on Friday agreed to a significant cut in the budget for the U.N.’s far-flung peacekeeping missions, a reduction that the Trump administration fought hard to achieve though it wanted an even larger decrease, The Associated Press reported.
After lengthy and heated negotiations, the assembly’s powerful budget committee agreed to a $7.3 billion budget for 14 peacekeeping missions for the year starting July 1, a $570 million cut from the current budget of $7.87 billion.
According to the source, the 193-member world body voted by consensus to approve $6.8 billion. It also agreed to an additional $500 million for two missions that are in the throes of downsizing — the joint U.N.-African Union mission in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said after the budget committee’s agreement early Thursday: “Just five months into our time here, we’ve already been able to cut over half a billion dollars from the U.N. peacekeeping budget and we’re only getting started.”