Former US national security advisor Mike Waltz to push Trump agenda at the UN
After a long delay, American President Donald Trump has nominated Mike Waltz, his one-time national security advisor and focal point of the recent Signal chat debacle, as the next US ambassador to the United Nations.
After Trump announced his nomination, a subdued Waltz wrote on X, “I’m deeply honored to continue my service to President Trump and our great nation.”
Waltz’s nomination comes weeks after Trump pulled his initial nominee, Elise Stefanik – a Republican from rural upstate New York – for the post, sending the self-described “ultra-MAGA” Trump loyalist back to her seat in the American Congress to focus on domestic issues.
Unlike Stefanik, Waltz, 51, will sit for his yet-to-be-scheduled Senate confirmation hearing for the ambassadorship, buoyed by decades of military experience as a Green Beret – an elite group of special forces in the US Army – as a former policy advisor in the Bush administration, the Pentagon – the headquarters of the US Department of Defense – and as a Republican member of Congress from his home state of Florida.
Married with one teenage daughter, Waltz graduated from the Virginia Military Institute – based in the US state of Virginia – and authored several books, including one published in 2014 titled Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret’s Battles from Washington to Afghanistan.
Still, it is likely that Waltz’s most recent role as Trump’s short-lived national security advisor and his sloppy slip-up on the messaging app Signal – where he inadvertently added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic – a left-leaning magazine – to a highly sensitive and detailed discussion about an imminent military strike in Yemen – that will get the most criticism and attention during the confirmation process.
In the shadow of the Signal chat debacle
If confirmed to be the UN ambassador, Waltz’s primary job would be to advocate for and sell the president’s vision to the international community at the UN.
Regarding US foreign policy, Jessica Gienow-Hecht, a history professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin in Germany, sees Waltz’s move from advisor to ambassador as “neither strategic nor tactical.”
The switch said Gienow-Hecht is “meant to remove a cabinet member whose occasional criticism stood in the way of Trump,” she said in an email to SWI. Waltz, who has international experience that lends to “strategically informed political viewpoints”, she added, “may matter far more to the UN than it does, to the Trump administration.”
Former American Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, told SWI swissinfo.ch that Waltz is not “a fanatic or strident demagogue like Stefanik”. According to Freeman, Waltz understands “the nature of give-and-take diplomacy,” which could work in his favour at the UN but only if he is “allowed to practice it”.
Waltz “the hawk” may be in for a shock
As an establishment Republican, Waltz is often described as a hawk, meaning he favours using military force, when necessary, instead of leaning on diplomacy and dialogue, which aligns with President Trump’s peace through strength foreign policy posture.
During his roughly three months as national security advisor, Waltz travelled with Secretary of State Rubio to Saudi Arabia to attend ongoing negotiations for peace in Ukraine. Additionally, he worked with Steve Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy, on implementing the Biden administration’s three-phased ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
If confirmed, former Ambassador Freeman added that Waltz “may be in for a shock as he discovers how isolated the United States has become”. This is notably the case in the conflict in Ukraine, where Trump stunned American allies in the Security Council and the General Assembly by taking a more conciliatory approach towards Russia and President Putin – and in Gaza where Trump has seemingly turned a blind eye to the Israeli military’s aid blockade.
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A far better and safer world
While Trump’s nomination of an ambassador to the UN may indicate that he is still, to some degree, interested in engaging in multilateralism, some of his actions in his last three months as president tell a slightly different and concerning story.
In addition to pulling out of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization (WHO) and defunding the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the administration has started to push back against language in official UN documentation that amplifies the ideology associated with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
During the opening session of the UN women’s executive board in February, the US delivered a stark statement insisting that the global body – dedicated to gender equality and empowering women – avoid focusing on “radical causes such as DEI and gender ideology”, to “acknowledge the biological reality of sex” and to avoid “immoral and discriminatory” DEI related initiatives.
And more recently, during the Committee on Information’s opening debate in April, at UN headquarters in New York, the US warned against the use of political or ideological language, adding that the US does not support “soft global governance that is inconsistent with US sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans, such as 2030 Agenda and the [Sustainable Development Goals] SDGs.”
Notably, the executive order that Trump signed in February that called for a complete review of US funding to the UN also called for a review of all treaties the US is a party to – such as the UN Charter – with recommendations “as to whether the United States should withdraw from such treaties.”
Meanwhile, more will be revealed about Waltz at his pending Senate confirmation hearing but if some of his recent comments are any indication, Waltz, like Stefanik, will prioritise President Trump’s America first – peace through strength agenda — regardless of what it could mean for the UN and the future of multilateralism.
“The last four years the world experienced a total lack of zero leadership under Biden, and then we’ve had a hundred days of your leadership” built on respect and strength, Waltz said to Trump at a cabinet meeting held the day before he was ousted as national security advisor. “I think the world is far better and far safer for it.”
Edited by Virginie Mangin/ac
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