U.N. expert hits U.S. on exit from rights body, poverty

BERLIN — A human rights expert criticized the United States on Friday for failing to tackle poverty and giving tax cuts to the wealthy — comments that came only days after Washington quit the U.N. body that appointed him.

High U.S. income inequality “can only be made worse” by the Trump administration’s policy of cutting taxes, Philip Alston told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“At the other end of the spectrum, 40 million Americans live in poverty and 18.5 million of those live in extreme poverty,” he said, adding, “vast numbers of middle-class Americans are perched on the edge, with 40 percent of the adult population saying they would be unable to cover an unexpected $400 expense.”

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley branded the report “misleading and politically motivated” in a letter.