Donald Trump has threatened to withhold “billions” of dollars of US aid from countries which vote in favour of a United Nations resolution rejecting the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
His comments came after the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, wrote to about 180 of 193 member states warning that she will be “taking names” of countries that vote for a general assembly resolution on Thursday critical of the announcement which overturned decades of US foreign policy.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump amplified Haley’s threat.
“Let them vote against us,” he said.
“We’ll save a lot. We don’t care. But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “We’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”
So, this means they'll be cutting military support for Saudi Arabia, right?
The US is legally on the wrong side of this issue: the UN has already ruled that the final status of Jerusalem must be decided by negotiation, not Israeli force. But the US no longer cares about laws, either internationally or domesticly. So they're resorting to thuggery instead. Its a sign of how far outside international norms they are that they're openly making such threats. And hopefully the world will respond with a resounding "fuck you", followed by a "nice policy on Iran and North Korea you've got; shame if anything were to happen to it..."