Nikki Haley Cuts $285 Million From the UN Budget: 'This Vote Will Be Remembered' (December 2017)

Nikki Haley warned them. Three days after the United Nations General Assembly voted to rebuke President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. announced that America had negotiated a $285 million cut in the world body’s budget. “The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Haley said. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked” [1].

The video above opens with Haley’s speech to the General Assembly on Dec. 21, 2017, just before the Jerusalem vote, then turns to a Sept. 7, 2017, Senate floor speech in which Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made the case against foreign aid. Haley’s words are quoted from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations’ official text of her remarks, and Paul’s from the Congressional Record [3][10].

”This Vote Will Be Remembered”

Trump announced on Dec. 6, 2017, that the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and would move its embassy there. After the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution against the decision [2], the Arab Group and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation took the fight to the General Assembly, where no country has a veto [4]. Ahead of the vote, Haley wrote to member states that Trump “will be watching [Thursday’s] vote carefully” and had “requested I report back on those who voted against us,” and she said on Twitter that the U.S. “will be taking names” [2].

On the floor, she didn’t flinch. “When a nation is singled out for attack in this organization, that nation is disrespected. What’s more, that nation is asked to pay for the ‘privilege’ of being disrespected,” Haley said. “In the case of the United States, we are asked to pay more than anyone else for that dubious privilege” [3].

“We have an obligation to demand more for our investment. And if our investment fails, we have an obligation to spend our resources in more productive ways,” she said. Then came the warning: “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation. We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations” [3].

“America will put our embassy in Jerusalem. That is what the American people want us to do, and it is the right thing to do. No vote in the United Nations will make any difference on that,” she said. “But this vote will make a difference on how Americans look at the UN and on how we look at countries who disrespect us in the UN. And this vote will be remembered” [3].

The Assembly adopted the resolution 128-9, with 35 abstentions. Only Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo voted with the United States [4].

The $285 Million Cut

On Dec. 24, the General Assembly adopted a $5.397 billion budget for 2018 and 2019. According to the U.N., that was 5% less than the final budget for 2016 and 2017 and $193 million below what Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had proposed in October, thanks to cuts in contractual services, furniture and equipment, consultants, travel and special political missions [5].

The U.S. Mission said the reduction came to more than $285 million and that the U.N.’s management and support functions would be trimmed too [6]. Haley credited the negotiations with a cut to the U.N.’s “bloated management and support functions.” “This historic reduction in spending — in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable UN — is a big step in the right direction,” she said. “While we are pleased with the results of this year’s budget negotiations, you can be sure we’ll continue to look at ways to increase the UN’s efficiency while protecting our interests” [7].

The United States had sought a $250 million cut on top of $200 million in savings Guterres had already proposed, Fox News reported [1]. Earlier in 2017, under pressure from the Trump administration, the separate U.N. peacekeeping budget was cut by $600 million [7].

Even the cut left Americans paying the biggest bill. Writing for Fox News a month later, Brett Schaefer calculated that it would save U.S. taxpayers over $31 million in each of 2018 and 2019, but that the U.S. would still pay $594 million a year, more than 178 other countries combined. He urged going after personnel costs, which had eaten up between 65% and 68% of spending in the previous five regular budgets [8].

”Big Hearts, Small Brains”

The video’s second half goes back three months, to the Senate debate over aid for Hurricane Harvey. “In Washington, we have a disease—or a syndrome rather. I call it the dinosaur syndrome: big hearts, small brains,” Paul said [10].

His “America first amendment” would have paid for the roughly $15 billion in hurricane aid “by taking it out of the foreign aid account.” “We send billions and billions of dollars to countries that hate us. We send billions and billions of dollars to countries that burn our flag,” he said [10]. Then he ran through examples:

“In the foreign aid account, we spent $273 million last year teaching people how to apply for more of our money.”
“We had a televised cricket league that we spent $1 million on in Afghanistan—a televised cricket league. The only problem is, they don’t really have any televisions.”
“We spent $45 million on a natural gas, gas station in Afghanistan… It was estimated to cost a half a million dollars.”
“We spent money teaching people in Kenya how to use Facebook.”
“We have USAID money going to Cambodia to help them get cost-effective or lower cost insurance” [10].

“Why don’t we take care of our own problems before we think we can take care of everybody else’s problems everywhere around the world?” Paul asked [10].

The Senate wasn’t ready to listen. It voted 87-10 to table Paul’s motion. All 10 votes on Paul’s side came from Republicans, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania [11]. The hurricane package became law the next day without offsets: $7.4 billion for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, $7.4 billion in community development grants and $450 million for small business disaster loans, along with a stopgap spending bill and a debt-limit suspension through Dec. 8, 2017 [12].

By the Numbers

$5.397 billion: the U.N. regular budget approved for 2018-2019, 5% below the previous two-year budget [5].
22%: the U.S. share of the U.N.’s regular budget; Fox News reported the U.S. also paid 28% of peacekeeping costs [1].
128-9: the General Assembly vote against the U.S. Jerusalem decision, with 35 abstentions [4].
About $43 million: what the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations spent on the Afghan natural gas station Paul described, according to a 2015 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. SIGAR found that a comparable station in neighboring Pakistan costs no more than $500,000 to build [13].
More than $20 billion: the aid American taxpayers sent in 2016 to the countries that voted against the U.S. on Jerusalem, as Trump told Congress in January 2018 [9].

What Happened Next

Trump took it to Congress. In his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30, 2018, Trump said dozens of countries had voted “against America’s sovereign right” to recognize Jerusalem and asked lawmakers for legislation to ensure “American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America” [9]. More from that speech is in our page on Trump’s 2018 State of the Union.
The embassy moved. Haley’s promise held. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem was dedicated on May 14, 2018, with Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in attendance [14][15].
America First, round two. On Feb. 4, 2025, Trump ordered that the U.S. would not participate in the U.N. Human Rights Council and directed reviews of UNESCO and of U.S. support for every international organization [16]. On Jan. 7, 2026, he ordered withdrawal from 66 international organizations, including 31 U.N. entities such as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the U.N. Population Fund [17]. For his 2020 message to the General Assembly, see our page on that speech.
Foreign aid cut. In July 2025, Trump signed a law canceling $9 billion in previously approved spending, including about $8 billion in foreign aid. It passed 51-48 in the Senate and 216-213 in the House [18].
The U.N. shrank. On Dec. 30, 2025, the General Assembly approved a $3.45 billion budget for 2026, built on Guterres’ plan for a 15% cut in resources and a nearly 19% cut in staff; 2,900 positions were abolished on Jan. 1, 2026 [19].
The dues fight goes on. As of August 2026, the Trump administration had built up roughly $2 billion in unpaid regular budget dues, plus about $3 billion for peacekeeping, Bloomberg reported. Guterres said a $725 million payment would come “very soon” [20].

”This Vote Will Be Remembered”

The $285 Million Cut

”Big Hearts, Small Brains”

By the Numbers

What Happened Next

Sources

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