Middle East Monitor / March 5, 2023
American Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has vowed to stop providing money to “countries that hate America” if elected, particularly targeting those that condemned the United States’ decision to move its embassy in Israel from the capital Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC this week, Haley – the former Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations – recalled her reaction to the mass vote at the UN General Assembly against the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital back in December 2017.
“So, I took names. I went to my office and I had my staff put a list together,” she told CPAC, referring to the 128 countries which voted against the radical motion. “They listed all 193 countries. The second column, I wanted them to say the percentage of times they voted with the United States and against the United States. And then I wanted the last column to show how much foreign aid we gave them.”
“Guess what? We give billions of dollars every year to countries that undermine America every day,” she said, claiming that they “stab us in the back and then they turn around and have their hand out wanting money.” Haley accused some countries of even supporting “terrorists that try and kill our troops,” clarifying that “we’re giving foreign aid to Pakistan, Iraq, the Palestinians and even communist Cuba and China.”
The US’s annual foreign aid budget amounts to tens of billions of dollars allocated to certain countries which are either allies or developing nations in general. Under Haley’s vow, as was starting to be the case under the Trump administration, that foreign aid would become ever more conditional on support for Washington’s policies and positions.
