Donald Trump’s threats against nations poorer than his own don’t appear to have had much of an effect.
The UN voted overwhelmingly to rebuke the Trump administration on its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Previous to the vote, Trump threatened to cut aid to countries that supported the measure.
The measure requires that all member states—including the US, of course—act according to a UN security council resolution that says no country should establish diplomatic missions in Jerusalem. Only nine nations sided with the US in rejecting the measure, with 128 advocating its passage and 35 abstaining. Aside from Israel, those nine were relatively poor countries that plausibly could have, to some degree, been influenced by the threat of aid removal.
Here’s how the member states voted:
Nikki Haley, American ambassador to the UN, reiterated the threat after the vote. “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” she said. “We will remember it when, once again, we are called up to make the world’s largest contribution to the UN, and we will remember it when many countries come calling on us to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”