A United Nations report condemning entrenched poverty in the United States is a "misleading and politically motivated" document about "the wealthiest and freest country in the world," the Trump administration's top U.N. official said.
U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the report for critiquing the United States' treatment of its poor, arguing that the United Nations should instead focus on poverty in developing countries such as Burundi and Congo Republic. The U.N. report also faulted the Trump administration for pursuing policies it said would exacerbate U.S. poverty.
"It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America," Haley wrote in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday. "In our country, the President, Members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, and City Council members actively engage on poverty issues every day. Compare that to the many countries around the world, whose governments knowingly abuse human rights and cause pain and suffering."
The rebuke comes two days after Haley announced the United States' resignation from the U.N. Human Rights Council over that body's perceived bias against Israel and toleration of human rights abusers.
"There are really poor people in Africa you know!" is actually kind of funny coming from the former governor of South Carolina, a state constantly at or near the bottom in national poverty statistics, especially for black folk. Sure, being poor and hungry in America isn't as awful as Yemen or South Sudan, but it doesn't mean people don't die in America because they can't afford to live here.
In May, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston released a report saying the United States has the highest rates of youth poverty, infant mortality, incarceration, income inequality and obesity among all countries in the developed world, as well as 40 million people living in poverty. Alston accused President Trump and the Republican Congress of deepening poverty and inequality in the country, citing the Republican tax law passed last fall.
"The policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege," Alston wrote in the report.
Haley pushed back in Thursday's letter, arguing that the administration had created a strong economy that would lift people out of poverty and that Alston's report was premised on misleading statistics. Haley said the U.N. special rapporteur had "categorically misstated" the progress America had made reducing poverty, but she gave no examples.
"I am deeply disappointed that the Special Rapporteur used his platform to make misleading and politically motivated statements about American domestic policy issues," Haley said. "Regrettably, his report is an all too common example of the misplaced priorities [of the U.N.]."
Haley's response is exactly what I'd expect out of China's Communist bureaucracy, North Korea's state media, or India's technocratic dog and pony show. Poverty in the US is very real for tens of millions of people, but we live in the richest country ever to exist, and being poor here still means you can be homeless, you can go hungry, and you can die from not being able to afford basics.
Of course she's going to scream and pretend like that's not happening.
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