Santa has a list too, Donald
New Zealand is now on that naughty list, having joined 127 other nations in rebuke of a US move that presents another obstacle for a two-state solution in the Middle East and a real shot in the arm for extremism.
The UN vote would have been merely a symbolic vote but the US made it something more; an unvarnished test of the sort of abject obedience Trump expects from any ally. Or at least any country that cannot afford the financial consequences of breaking ranks.
Haley speaks of the ‘‘disrespect’’ behind the vote. This might have come across as a Godfather line, except nobody in that administration has the gravitas to pull the reference off. No Vito or Michael Corleones here; just a heap of Fredos and the occasional Sonny.
In case Haley was being too subtle, Trump himself spelt out the financial consequences of dissent, particularly in terms of aid spending.
‘‘They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars and then they vote against us. Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.’’
So Trump was essentially declaring that not only does the US have its own sovereign rights, sanctified by God, money and militarism, it also has many other countries’ sovereign rights in its hip pocket, Bought and paid for, fair and square.
And he doesn’t want to hear a peep of criticism from them in the UN – itself a body which, come to think of it, the US helps fund. Or maybe not so much, now. We’ll see.
There’s much that divides the United Nations, to the extent that at can be hard to trigger something as emphatic, as instinctive as a collective gag reflex. But Trump’s just about managed it.
Let’s not bandy descriptions like ‘‘narcissistic vengeful autocrat’’. Let’s just say that wherever Trump draws a line on an issue, he’s liable to move that line all over the place in future, all the time expecting lickspittle obedience at every turn.
As long as he remains in power, US foreign policy will be increasingly despised. New Zealand is right to steer its own course. We need our own international reputation to outlive his.