Will come to order. Today we consider the role of the United States at the United Nations. In her first few months Ambassador Nikki Haley has approached her job with determination and purpose, chairing the u. N. Security council in april she spotlighted the grave Security Council north korea and Nuclear Proliferation and the threats it poses to us. She has cast gated iran and hezbollah for their role in sewing instability across the middle east. Ambassador hailey made it clear that the u. N. s record of protecting dictators cannot stand. Indeed, as ambassador hailey declared the United States role at the u. N. Is to show our strength, show our voice and have the backs of our allies. I think thats wellsaid, ambassador. The United Nations is charged with the Ambitious Mission to maintain International Peace and security and to achieve International Cooperation in solving International Problems. But unfortunately the organization all too often falls short. U. N. Organizations continuously debate issues but too often make no meaningful action. As ambassador hailey has eloquently described, u. N. Organizations like the Human Rights Council give dictators and give human rights violators a platform to attack israel. In addition to calling for the u. N. To end its bias against israel, she has made chrystryst clear that the International Body can no longer promote antisemitism. I was pleased to see ambassador hailey recognize that human rights and conflict are directly connected, in her words. For my standpoint, i think regimes that dont respect the citizens over which they hold power and visitors like Otto Warmbier wont respect their neighbors, wont respect international agreements. Given its terrible human rights record, it is no surprise that north korea is determined to deploy International Nuclear ballistic weapons technology, and that threatens the region and it threats the United States. Meanwhile, companies and banks inside china continue to provide critical hard currency to that regime. The United Nations has passed good Security Council resolutions on north korea, spurred by u. S. Legislation that we passed in this committee, but enforcement is needed. As we will hear today the president s Budget Proposal includes significant reductions in u. S. Funding of the United Nations and its agencies. U. N. Peace keeping has played a Critical Role over the years in advancing u. S. Interests and should be prioritized in accordance with u. S. Law. The recent deaths of peace keepers in south sudan and in mali remind us of the dangers they face, but Peace Keeping would find more support if failing missions some decades old were closed and the horrendous sexual abuses tackled head on. This committee has pushed to improve the u. N. s transparency and accountability, advancing protections of whistleblowers and bringing u. N. Peace keepers that are sexual predators to the bar of justice. Ambassador hailey, we look forward to hearing how we can support you working to improve transparency and accountability. This committee stands ready to assist in your difficult task, and i now turn to the Ranking Member for his opening remarks. Thank you, mr. Chairman and madam ambassador. Welcome to the Foreign Affairs committee. I have watched you in the short months that youve been ambassador. I hope you are enjoying my hometown of new york, the best place in the world, and i have watched you with admiration in terms of how you have been conducting yourself. As i said to you in the room before we started, we pride ourselves on this committee of being the most Bipartisan Committee in the congress. The chairman and i have worked very hard to do that. Where there are disagreements there are disagreements, but we all share the same goal and, of course, the United States is the worlds biggest superpower. We believe we have a lot to offer the world and want to continue to work with all of the countries of the world. I was disappointed in the budget. I said this to secretary tillerson as well. It cuts out support for key Peace Keeping efforts in the United States by nearly 40 . Peace keeping missions help people who have been driven from their homes by atrocity in south sudan. The u. N. Peace keepers are protecting nearly a quarter of a million person. They have been so effective in building stability and security. We have traditionally invested a little more than the minimum required in Peace Keeping, and thats what i think an indispensable power should do, which is what we have done. Thats to show the world we are a big hearted country that want to see people around the world lead prosperous life. American personnel not deployed by helps efforts, our men and women are not put in harms way. These initiatives help prevent crises so we dont have to intervene militarily and they do it eight times less than it would cost to send an american soldier. We talk about burden sharing, i believe it is the definition of burden sharing. The administration is also seeking to completely eliminate american support for u. N. Development program, for Disaster Relief coalition, the u. N. Women Population Fund, the unicef support for children living in the most desperate circumstances. 100 reduction, i think that needs to be changed. The u. N. Has its problems, no one disputes that. We talked a little bit about some of them. I think the way israel is blamed and bullied by u. N. Members is terrible, as i told you before. The socalled Human Rights Council has the worst human rights abuses on that council, and it is the epitome of hutzpah as we say in new york to think they can sit and look at anybody in judgment of anybody, given the fact they have the most abysmal human rights record in the world. It almost makes it a little bit like alice in wonder land. But i think American Leadership is needed to help shape initiatives and when appropriate to use our veto to counter the imbalance. Walking away from our commitments is not the right way to effect reform we all want the see. I believe the cuts send a deeply troubling message to u. N. Members that the United States no longer wants to be a Global Leader on a range of issues and were willing to cede the ground to whomever steps into our place. I cant imagine a more harmful course if we want our values to be the values and priorities of other countries than withdrawing from multilateral engagement, of. It is a grave miscalculation. Make no mistake, beijing, teheran and plenty of others would be happy to see us back away. Im Glad Congress will have the last word on the budget issues. I remain deeply concerned about the number of other areas where American Foreign policy is going off course and how that affects our ability to work with other governments through the u. N. I hope your testimony will address some of these problems. Let me say as i told you before, i look forward to working with you. You have approached this job with a zest and a verve that is very refreshing. We will from time to time have policy differences, but i think we all stand for the same thing obviously, and thats what we tried to do in the Foreign Relations committee. So welcome. I look forward to your testimony and i look forward to your tenure as u. N. Ambassador. Yield back. Thank you. I now yield to the gentleman from South Carolina to introduce our witness today. Thank you, mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure for me to introduce my friend, Ambassador Nikki Haley, to my colleagues. A South Carolina native, ambassador hailey graduated from my alma mater, the 2016 National Football champions clemson tigers. Im shameless, guys, shameless. Ambassador hailey made her career as a trail blazer. In 2004 she became the first Indian American to hold a South CarolinaPublic Office when she won a seat in the South Carolina state house where i served with her for six years. In 2010 she was elected the first female as well as the first minority governor of South Carolina. In her tenure as governor of South Carolina ambassador hailey brought investment and jobs from all over the world. South carolina now holds more than 1,200 operations of International Firms which employ more than 131,000 South Carolina natives. A lot of this investment was tied to governor haileys reports, especially businesses in europe and asia. On november 22nd, 2016 the president elect donald trump picked her to become the United States ambassador to the United Nations where she continues to strongly represent american interests on the world stage. Ambassador hailey, welcome to congress. We look forward to your testimony. I yield back. And welcome, ambassador. Without objection, the ambassadors full prepared statements will be made part of the record. Members will have five calendar days to submit any statements or questions or any extraneous material for the record. I would ask the ambassador if you could summarize your remarks. Thank you very much. To my friend jeff, go tigers. Thank you for that introduction. Chairman royce, Ranking Member engel and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss advancing u. S. Interests at the United Nations. Five months and three days ago i was sworn in as u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations. I came into this position at a time when Many Americans felt a deep sense of betrayal at the u. N. In the wake of the passage of resolution 2334. At my confirmation hearing i made the following promise. If i am privileged to be the u. S. Ambassador, i will never sit passively while americas interests and americas friends are run down at the u. N. Five months later i can say that i havent been quiet on the issues important to the United States, and i can say this, i have kept my promise. Our friends and our rivals know that america has once again found its voice at the United Nations. The International Community is now very clear about what the u. S. Is for and what the u. S. Is against. It wasnt long after my confirmation that my promise was put to the test. In early april the Syrian Regime dropped chemical weapons on syrian children. We forced the Security Council to hold an open emergency session, which some Member States didnt want. We drew a red line that the u. N. Would not act correctively, the United States would act alone and we did. We brought new accountability to the north korean regime. When north korea continued its illegal missile tests, we brought all of the nations of the Security Council together including china and russia to impose new sanctions. Even as we focus on north Koreas Nuclear and missile threat, we also continue to highlight the barbaric Human Rights Violations the regime is committing. Otto warmbiers death brought home to americans the brutality north koreans have known for decades. With the same clear voice we used to take on our adversaries we used to support americas values and americas friends. Thanks to u. S. Leadership human rights are at the forefront of if u. N. Agenda. For the First Time Ever during the u. S. Presidency of the Security Council we convened a meeting dedicated solely to the protection of human rights and their relationship to conflict. We made the case that Human Rights Violations and conflict are directly related. History has played out. When governments dont respect the rights and voices of the people, conflict will soon follow. Weve also called out the u. N. Human Rights Council for legitimizing human rights violators at expense of their victim also. We put forward reforms to make the council what it was meant to be, a place of conscience for nations and justice for victims. I traveled to geneva earlier this month to make it clear to the council that continued u. S. Participation is contingent on adoption of these reforms. On a related note, the u. S. Mission now refuses to tolerate one of the u. N. s most disreputable and dangerous hablts, obsessively bashing israel. We forced the withdrawal of a false and biassed report and steered the Security Councils monthly debate on the middle east away from unfairly targeting israel and toward the true threats in the region such as iran and hamas. In the areas in which the u. N. Has real value we have bit on its good work. Peace keeping is one of the most important things the u. N. Does. We are reviewing every one of the Peace Keeping missions with an eye toward ensuring that we have clear and achievable mandates. We are also working to ensure that troops are ready, professional and committed to the safety of civilians on the ground. Troops in the u. N. Peace keeping mission and the democratic republic of the congo, for instance, have long faced charges of sexual abuse and other serious misconduct. We inserted clear instructions into the missions most recent mandate to enforce performance standards for troops. There is no place in any u. N. Peace keeping mission for predatory and abusive troops. Our Peace Keeping reforms are aimed at producing more Effective Missions for vulnerable citizens. We will hold governments accountable to their responsibility, to protect their own citizens while also cutting down waste and efficiencies. We have adapted the mission in haiti to changing commissions on the ground and are on target to save at least 150 million for the year. We will continue our Reform Efforts when we take up the Peace KeepingMission Renewal this month in darfur, sudan. Our efforts will hold the government accountable to improve humanitarian access. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to highlight our efforts to reassert u. S. Leadership at the United Nations. It is hard to believe it has only been five months since i moved my family to new york to begin this challenging and exciting new chapter. I look forward to more progress in the months ahead and welcome your questions. Thank you. Thank you, ambassador hailey. Let me start with this point. This week the white house issued a firm statement, a warning to syria after it was picked up that assad, his regime was preparing potentially for another chemical weapons attack, you amplified that message yourself. Have we seen assads regime take steps in response to that warning . I can tell you due to the president s actions we did not see an incident. What we did see before was all of the same activity that we had seen prior to the april 4th chemical weapons attack. I think by the president calling out assad, i think by us continuing to remind iran and russia that while they choose to back assad that this was something we were not going to put up with. So i would like to think that the president saved many innocent men, women and children. Let me ask you a question on the u. N. Security Council Resolutions that were passed with respect to north korea. Were a few years away from north korea having an icbm capability that can reach the u. S. , and we have this question about enforcement. We have a second bill, in addition to the sanctions bill which i and mr. Engel passed formerly and was signed into law, we have a second bill to try to close any additional loopholes. Specifically what were trying to do is to stop the use of forced labor by north korea where they will have workers sent to the middle east and other countries, and instead of the workers being paid the money goes right back into the bank account of the north korea regime and it is used on its Nucle