3 Reasons the United Nations Should Be Moderately Relieved By Trump's Pick for UN Ambassador

The first cabinet pick goes to...Elise Stefanik?

Credit: EliseForCongress.com

Donald Trump has appointed New York Representative Elise Stefanik as his incoming Ambassador to the UN.

Once widely seen as a rising Republican star, Stefanik at the time became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at the age of 30, ten years ago. Back then, she championed a more conventional brand of GOP moderation. In 2016, she issued strong denunciations of Donald Trump but has since become one of his most loyal and ardent supporters. Following Trump’s consolidation of power within the Republican Party, she rose through the ranks to become a senior leader of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.

The most important thing to know about Elise Stefanik is that she has no fixed ideological stance. While she does promote certain conventional GOP views—such as being staunchly pro-Israel and anti-China—her foremost allegiance is to Trump. Trump has now rewarded that loyalty by appointing her as UN Ambassador, marking his first cabinet selection.

For the UN, this could actually be a beneficial development. Here are three reasons why.

1. The Opposite of Love is Indifference

That Donald Trump would pick one of his closest allies as U.S. Ambassador to the UN suggests that he values American engagement with the UN. Yes, the contours of that engagement are likely to sometimes be adversarial. But this move suggests that he is more inclined to engage with the UN than seek to withdraw from it. This would align with his approach to the UN in his first administration, which included many examples of productive engagement with the United Nations, such as working at the Security Council to ratchet up sanctions on North Korea and Iran and increasing funding for humanitarian agencies like the World Food Program.

On the other hand, due to Trump’s personal volatility and transactional nature, there is always the possibility that he could seek to withdraw from the UN altogether. That prospect now becomes more remote, given that one of his closest allies will serve as his representative there.

Why? Because…

2. Bureaucracy Matters

Democrats always elevate the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to a cabinet-level position. Republicans sometimes do. During Nikki Haley’s tenure as Trump’s ambassador, she was in the Cabinet. Her replacement, Kelly Craft, was not. It was during Craft’s time as UN Ambassador that U.S.-UN relations began to go off the rails. The Trump administration took a far more adversarial position on the UN as an institution during those later months. Among other things, this included a move to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

With such a close Trump ally as UN ambassador, the relevance and role of the UN in American foreign policy will be elevated in a few important ways.