American ambassador to the UN hails President Trump’s State of the Union address as a sign that “America is finally leading again.”
By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Nikki Haley, the outspoken American representative to the United Nations (UN), offered praise for President Trump’s State of the Union address, delivered on Tuesday.
“For the first time in a long time,” she stated, “our friends know that they can count on the United States to have their backs, and our enemies know that we will no longer give them passes when they threaten American interests.”
Stating that America was “restoring clarity about our adversaries” during the address, the president talked toughly against “rogue regimes” that “challenge our interests, our economy, and our values.” To that end, Trump asked for an expanded defense budget, declaring that “weakness is the surest path to conflict” and “complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation.”
Trump also addressed Iran, which he called a “corrupt dictatorship,” while praising the people who dared to defy the mullahs in recent street protests in cities across the country. He also called on Congress again to fix “the fundamental flaws” in the nuclear deal then-president
Among other changes to the agreement, Trump has said in the past that he wants Iranian missile development to trigger new sanctions. He also has said he wants to remove “sunset” clauses that lift some of the restrictions on Iran enriching fissile material in 10-15 years.
Haley backed the president, declaring, “We are standing strong against dangerous and destabilizing regimes that continue to violate their international commitments. We are squeezing the North Korean regime with the strongest ever UN Security Council sanctions, and we are sharing with the world concrete evidence of Iran’s destabilizing actions.”
The ambassador was referring to last December, when she presented to the UN the remains of Iranian weapons systems and missiles shot by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels into Saudi Arabia from Yemen as “concrete evidence” that Iran was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. That 2015 resolution endorsed the Iran nuclear agreement, and called on Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles for eight years as well.
Haley has consistently supported the administration in this regard. Before her stint in the UN, she had been the Republican governor of South Carolina. She delivered the opposition party’s traditional response to Barack Obama last State of the Union address, declaring, “We would make international agreements that were celebrated in Israel and protested in Iran, not the other way around.”