Once a Trump critic, Haley casts self as leading diplomat

UNITED NATIONS — Before and after he became president, Donald Trump made it pretty clear that he didn’t see much value in the United Nations. So when he named Nikki R. Haley as his choice for U.N. ambassador, many wondered whether he was simply shunting a tough critic into a trivial post.

In the past week, Haley made it increasingly clear that she has no intention of being sidelined. To the contrary, as diplomats at the United Nations saw it, she managed to elbow herself into a leading, outspoken role in the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, she was the first senior official in the administration to warn that the United States could take unilateral action against Syria’s president for the chemical attack that killed more than 80 people in his country. The same day, she was named a full member of the coveted principals’ committee on Trump’s National Security Council.

In the U.N. Security Council, she pushed for a sharply worded draft resolution to remind the Syrian government to share the flight logs of all its air operations with international investigators. She confronted Russia for blocking it, and on Thursday evening — in what diplomats described as tense negotiations — Haley not only rejected a compromise, but made it clear she was not happy to be led by other countries in the direction of a compromise. Haley

Soon after she walked out of the Security Council’s chambers that evening, news emerged that the United States had, in fact, fired dozens of Tomahawk missiles at an air base in Syria.

Haley, 45, a former governor of South Carolina, has created at least the impression among her fellow ambassadors that she is carving out a space for herself in an administration where it isn’t always clear who is guiding contentious policy. The French ambassador, François Delattre, concluded Thursday evening that she was “clearly very influential in the Trump administration.”

Current and former U.S. officials say that Haley — a neophyte in foreign affairs who works closely with a small band of trusted political aides — seems to have a great deal of visibility and, possibly, latitude.