U.N. nominee Nikki Haley grilled on foreign policy issues at hearing
Nikki Haley, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, answered questions on a range of foreign policy questions and issues during her 3.5-hour confirmation hearing with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday morning -- and told lawmakers not to worry too much about Donald Trump’s penchant for incendiary comments.
Haley, the governor of South Carolina, told the committee that what Trump says after he’s sworn and huddles with his national security team will be what matters. She sidestepped a question from Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, who listed a number of Trump’s more provocative remarks, including calling NATO obsolete and downplaying Moscow’s meddling in America’s 2016 election.
The nominee assailed the Obama administration for failing to block the U.N. Security Council from condemning Israel’s settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In her testimony, Haley said she won’t go to New York and “abstain when the U.N. seeks to create an international environment that encourages boycotts of Israel.”
Additionally, Haley said she “absolutely” supports moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump promised to shift the embassy during his campaign, a move that could prove highly contentious.
And with the future of the U.S.-Russia relationship in question, Haley took a tough stance toward the country, saying she believes Russia committed war crimes by bombing Syrian civilians in the city of Aleppo.
Haley says she doesn’t think that the United States can trust Moscow right now. But she acknowledged there are areas, such as counterterrorism, where the two countries can cooperate.
“The problem is there are no boundaries with Russia,” she said, adding that the U.S. needs to let Russia know “we are not OK” with its annexation of Crimea and incursion in Ukraine.
Haley also says she opposed to lifting existing sanctions against Russia unless Moscow changes its behavior.
In another break with the president-elect, Haley said the U.S. would be better off carefully reviewing the Iran nuclear deal rather than withdrawing from it completely.
“I think what would be more beneficial at this point is that we look at all the details of the Iran deal, we see if they (the Iranians) are actually in compliance. If we find that there are violations that we act on those violations,” Haley told lawmakers.
Playing to bipartisan concerns about a Muslim registry, Haley said that there should not be any registry based on the religion.
And asked about the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines’ war on drugs, Haley said the practice violates basic human rights. She vowed to speak up “on anything that goes against American values,” saying the U.S. has always been “the moral compass of the world.”
