The New York State Conservative Party called on the U.N. Wednesday to relocate its headquarters outside of the U.S., saying the world body has declined from a once-hopeful postwar organization into what party leaders describe as a “bureaucratic shell hostile to America and its values.”
“New Yorkers once took pride that our city hosted the United Nations,” said New York State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar. “It was a symbol of hope after World War II, and it gave New York a special distinction as the ‘Capital of the World.’ Sadly, the institution has since devolved into a body dominated by anti-American, antisemitic, career bureaucrats. It is no longer a source of pride but of embarrassment.”
Mr. Kassar pointed to decades of complaints about U.N. diplomats routinely ignoring New York City’s traffic and parking laws, undermining the rule of law in the city that hosts them.
“The U.N. has long treated New York with contempt, even as we house and protect it. The brazen disregard its diplomats show toward the laws of our city is symbolic of the organization’s larger failings.”
The U.N.’s location in New York City has long been a topic of debate as U.N. diplomats have ignored tens of millions of dollars in unpaid city parking fines, and the U.S. taxpayer carries the heaviest burden to maintain the headquarters.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, every member of the U.N. is required to contribute to the organization’s budget, and the U.S. has been the largest donor since the body’s founding in 1945.
The U.S. contributed close to $13 billion in 2023, accounting for more than a quarter of funding for the body’s collective budget.
The Conservative Party’s call for the U.N.’s relocation comes after President Trump condemned the multi-nation body in a speech Tuesday as a do-nothing entity that fails to hold rogue nations accountable, whose members do a shoddy job of running their own countries and fall for climate change “con jobs” heaped upon their taxpayers.
Mr. Trump reserved his most blistering attacks for the U.N. itself and even questioned whether it should exist.
“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Mr. Trump asked.
At times, he openly mocked the organization by saying it doesn’t do much beyond “writing a really strongly worded letter.” He cited mechanical failures at the U.N. headquarters Tuesday — an escalator that stopped running just as he and first lady Melania Trump stepped onto it and a teleprompter that malfunctioned at the start of his speech — as analogies for what he sees as incompetence.
Mr. Kassar noted the immense value of the East River real estate where the U.N. complex sits.
“That property is priceless,” Mr. Kassar said. “New Yorkers would be far better served by a public park with a water view than by continuing to subsidize an institution that works against the interests of our nation and our allies.”
He said, “The time has come for the United Nations to find a new home — if any country would be willing to accept a body that has morally deteriorated to the point of uselessness. New York has been more than generous for nearly eight decades. It’s someone else’s turn.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.