The U.S. is locked once again in a back-room struggle with developing nations over how much of the United Nations tab Washington will pick up over the next three years, especially the bill for peacekeeping activities.
There is cautious hope among diplomats that the U.S. can chip away at least marginally at the U.N.’s “scale of assessments”-- a dues system loaded in favor of many poor and not-so-poor countries that pay less than their fair share, and saddle the small number of rich countries -- especially the U.S. -- with the difference.
In broad terms, the bottom line will remain the same: the U.S. will continue to pay billions more than everyone else. Last year, the U.S. handed over $3 billion toward the U.N.’s so-called “regular” Secretariat budget and its peacekeeping forces, though the full amount of U.S. contributions to the U.N. system -- the Obama administration does not divulge them -- was much more.
The last official tally of overall U.S. contributions, in 2010, was about $7.6 billion, and that was widely considered a low-ball figure.
The basis of U.S. giving is the U.N. assessments scale -- currently set so that the U.S. pays 22 percent of the so-called “regular” U.N. Secretariat annual budget (about $2.8 billion in 2015), and 28.36 percent of its peacekeeping budget, which has ballooned in the past few years to $8.47 billion in 2014-2015.
The bigger the overall bills, the bigger is the share in dollar terms the U.S. must pay because of its outsized dues percentages.
The next-biggest percentage payee, Japan, forks over 10.83 percent of both the U.N.’s regular budget and peacekeeping spending, and as a result signed a check for about $1.23 billion -- about 40 percent of the U.S. total. Powerhouses like Germany fall even further behind.
The U.S. peacekeeping tab is more than the tally for the other four veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council -- France, the United Kingdom, China and Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation --combined.
On the other hand, the least-paying 176 countries at the world organization -- and there are only 193 in the U.N. system -- coughed up in toto little more than Japan-- some $1.4 billion for both their peacekeeping and “regular” dues, according to figures compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Taken separately, the peacekeeping tab for the Bottom 176 is even worse: about 10 percent of the bill, or roughly $848 million, again less than Japan’s share.
This year, however, a few factors are favorable to change, starting with the fact that the annual cost of U.N. peacekeeping appears, for the first time in a decade, to be going down rather than up.
Peacekeeping is currently estimated to cost U.N. member states about $8.27 billion in 2015-2016. (Typically for the U.N.’s spaghetti-tangled system of bookkeeping, peacekeeping budgets are calculated from mid-year to mid-year, while “regular” U.N. budgets are calculated on a January-to-December basis -- but biennially.)
One cause: A small number of expensive U.N. missions, including that in Haiti, for example, have shrunk considerably, and some are likely to shrink more.
The other reason for a difference is that some of the biggest economies in the so-called developing world -- China, Russia, Korea, not to mention Brazil and Argentina -- are likely facing hikes in their U.N. percentage tabs due to rising local Gross Domestic Product, producing increases in their “regular” dues rates of 30 percent or more.
In some cases, notably Argentina’s, the hike will still be hard to spot: that country’s share of regular U.N. dues actually rose dramatically in the past two years -- from 0.0574 percent to .432 percent.
A further catch in the budget process is that many countries actually receive a discount from their regular dues for peacekeeping, which the five veto power countries in the U.N. Security Council are expected to pick up as a “premium” that ticks upward from their baseline “regular” budget dues in exchange for their veto-wielding status.
Outcome: the U.S. once again gets hosed worse than other members of the veto club, even though the percentage increase in its “premium” rate is the same as for other nations that don’t pick up anywhere near as much of the U.N.’s “regular” tab, because of its higher baseline, bringing its peacekeeping share to the current 28.36 percent level.
“When the math [of discounts] was created, perhaps the dynamic was not clearly understood,” says a U.S. official.
This year, American effort is aimed, according to the official, at ways “to get the discounts streamlined, and eliminate those for the wealthiest countries.”
Among the countries targeted for persuasion are Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arab states, and prosperous mini-states like Singapore.
Saudi Arabia, for example, had an oil-inflated GDP of 746.25 billion in 2014, its highest level ever. But its share of the U.N. regular budget was a measly 0.864 percent, and its peacekeeping share, due to discounts, even lower: 0.518 percent.
Spain, with twice the GDP of Saudi Arabia, but a much larger population -- which means its per-capita wealth is significantly less -- pays more than three times as much as the Saudis for the regular U.N. budget, and nearly six times as much for peacekeeping.
Will the U.S. effort pay off?
“The situation is fluid,” a U.S. diplomat told Fox News. “I can’t say we have clarity.”
In other words, no one is likely to be sure until somewhere around Christmas Eve, if then.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave new perspective on Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking favorably about him. When he mentioned allegations the Russian president killed reporters, Trump said it's awful and said he would "never kill reporters but I hate them - such lying, disgusting people".
He told the crowd in Grand Rapids, Mich. that the current U.S. approach towards Russia isn’t working. “It would be so great if we could get Russia on our side and knock the hell out of ISIS, right, so stupid, just knock the living hell out of them?”
Trump weighed on Hillary Clinton saying ISIS is using videos of the GOP front-runner as a recruitment tool. “It turned out to be a lie and the last person she wants to run against is me”.
He also reacted to S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham dropping out of the 2016 race. In what seemed to be a sarcastic remark, Trump said the news was “extremely sad” and added, “he was nasty to me, everybody who goes against me is then gone”.
Then knocking his other GOP rivals, Trump said “ask Jeb bush if he enjoys running against me, ask Lindsay graham did he enjoy running against me … do they enjoy it, I enjoy it”.
He attacked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, accusing him of being controlled by outside money. “Politicians are controlled by special interests and lobbyists, companies pay them millions of dollars and they get in, look I don't' want to get involved, Rubio, then this one and this one.”
The businessman talked a good portion of his remarks about the car industry with Michigan being the home state to Ford, G&M, and Chrysler.
“You have your closed plants and you're looking for jobs it's a disgrace, and I'll tell you the one thing that really helps me is that you're really making great cars now,” he told supporters.
Trump proposed imposing 35 percent tax on “ever car truck and part” that comes from outside the country.
At what has become the norm at Trump rallies, protestors nearly a dozen times during his speech interrupted the GOP candidate. He tried to downplay their significance saying they look so young or calling them losers. One protestor called Trump a “bigot” before being escorted outside the venue.