US to cut funding for UN human rights office

US national security adviser John Bolton, speaks during an interview about the meeting with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev, at the American embassy in Geneva, Switzerland on Aug. 23, 2018. | Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP

GENEVA — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, says the United States will cut funding for the office of the U.N. human rights chief, the administration’s latest blow against the United Nations.

Bolton announced the move against the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which would lose one of its largest donors. The United States is the U.N.’s largest single donor, providing about 22 percent of its budget.

In an interview Thursday, Bolton said U.S. officials would calculate how much of the U.S. annual budget goes to the rights office and the Human Rights Council, a 47-nation U.N.-backed assembly of nations, and reduce its outlay by that amount.

Ex-Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is set to replace Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein as the High Commissioner for Human Rights next month.

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