Trump Admin. to Slash Support for UN Peacekeeping Missions in Africa

Trump Admin. to Slash Support for UN Peacekeeping Missions in Africa

The Trump administration plans to significantly cut U.S. support for United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa as part of a broader strategy that seeks to better promote American interests on the continent, National Security Adviser John Bolton said Thursday.

Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Bolton criticized "unproductive, unsuccessful, and unaccountable U.N. peacekeeping missions" that often lead to decades of U.N. occupation rather than conflict resolution.

"We will only back effective and efficient operations, and we will seek to streamline, reconfigure, or terminate missions that are unable to meet their own mandate or facilitate lasting peace," Bolton said. "Our objective is to resolve conflicts, not freeze them in perpetuity."

Bolton, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the second Bush administration, accused the world body of frequently entering into truces with African governments followed by the deployment of peacekeeping forces without addressing the issues fueling the conflict.

"All too often at the United Nations, establishing the peacekeeping force and deploying it is the end of creative thinking and the mandate [of the mission] is renewed almost automatically," he said. "There needs to be a lot more focus on resolving the underlying conflict, and therefore having success in the peacekeeping mission. Success is not simply continuing the mission ad infinitum."

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