US-UN Relations

Kelly Knight Craft, the US envoy to Canada, has been nominated by President Trump to be the next US representative to the UN. Here, she celebrates the Fourth of July in Ottawa with her husband, Joseph Craft III, a billionaire coal investor. The couple’s coal wealth could present a conflict of interest for Kelly Craft at the UN, where climate change is a major thrust of its work. 
It’s easy to figure out why Donald Trump picked Kelly Knight Craft to be his ambassador to the United Nations.

At the 2018 meeting of the annual UN megaconference on women, a scene of which is captured above, the United States delegation created controversy over its conservative stances on women’s rights. This year, days before the meeting starts, the US has offered scant information on how it will participate, revealing major disorganization in the government. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN

Nikki Haley, the former US envoy to the UN, has been nominated to join the Boeing board, among other new ventures that could raise a lot of money for a possible presidential run by her. As governor of South Carolina, she helped Boeing expand its plant there, a move celebrated above, May 10, 2013. CREATIVE COMMONS
Two months after leaving the United Nations, Nikki Haley has assembled a political network that is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential run in 2024, or even in 2020 — should her mentor Donald Trump not run.

In Dakar, staff members from UN Women Senegal and other UN agencies attend a presentation on sexual harassment in the workplace, part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 2016.
As multilateralism takes a beating from President Trump amid the “new world disorder,” as one European diplomat put it, three women who know the United Nations inside and out through previous top leadership jobs have originated a Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion.

U.S. Department of State Follow Spokesperson Nauert Delivers Remarks at a Reception in Support of the United States’ Bid to Host the 2023 World’s Fair at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 2017. [State Department Photo/ Public Domain]Heather Nauert, who was nominated by President Trump in early December to succeed Nikki Haley as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, has withdrawn from consideration as of Feb. 16, 2018.

In Cairo last year, Melania Trump toured the Giza Pyramids, a Unesco World Heritage site. The author of the essay toured Unesco sites across five continents, noting how designations can increase tourism to an area but can also hurt a place’s physical integrity. ANDREA HANKS/White House
In the fall — before the caravan, before the firings, before the shutdown, before the wall — Melania Trump concluded her first solo goodwill tour with a photogenic visit to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx of Egypt, the only surviving complex of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Kelley Currie, the No. 2 ambassador at the UN mission to the UN, speaking with reporters on Oct. 16, 2018, regarding Cuban political prisoners. Currie is leaving the US mission as it awaits a formal ambassador to arrive to succeed Nikki Haley, who resigned on Oct. 9. MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo spoke at a UN Security Council session on Venezuela, Jan. 26, 2019, where he insulted China and Russia, the author writes, in his speech asking all Council members to back the Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. (Immediately behind Pompeo is Elliott Abrams, the new US envoy to Venezuela.) STATE DEPARTMENT
When Secretary of State Michael Pompeo talks about global challenges, he insists that Donald Trump is doing a bang-up job steering the international community down the right path.

President Trump arriving at the United Nations with Nikki Haley, Sept. 18, 2017. The author describes how Haley, who is no longer US ambassador, is continuing to keep the spotlight on herself through Twitter, just as her former boss deploys the social media tool. RICK BAJORNAS/UN PHOTO
Nikki Haley is wasting no time revealing what her new act will look like now that she has ended her two-year gig toiling on behalf of Donald Trump at the United Nations.
Hint: It looks about the same — only more so.

Heather Nauert, center, in Helsinki, July 16, 2018. In December, Trump said he was nominating Nauert to succeed Nikki Haley as US ambassador to the UN, but the White House hasn’t sent the formal nomination to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which holds the confirmation hearing. STATE DEPARTMENT