WASHINGTON _ Apparently as reward for supporting the United States during a United Nations vote on Jerusalem, Ambassador Nikki Haley will visit Honduras and Guatemala next week, her office announced Friday.
The trip to two of the region's most troubled countries follows a lopsided U.N. General Assembly vote in December to condemn President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. Embassy to the disputed city.
"We are grateful to these two countries for standing with us at the U.S. when many others did not," a spokesman for the U.S. mission at the U.N. said Friday. "At the same time, we have many other shared interests to discuss, including narcotics, gangs, migration, and the crisis in Venezuela."
This is Haley's first trip to Latin America as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Only eight nations sided with the Trump administration during the Dec. 21 vote, while 128 voted to condemn the U.S. position.
Other nations voting with the U.S. were Israel, the West African nation of Togo, and the tiny Pacific island states of Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. Thirty-five nations abstained on the vote.
Haley had threatened before the vote to "take names" of those who did not stand with the U.S.
The governments of both Honduras and Guatemala, heavily dependent on U.S. aid, are embroiled in numerous corruption scandals.
Most recently, The Associated Press reported from the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa that a new police chief once had worked with drug cartels. The Honduran government's response was to threaten the AP reporters with a criminal investigation of them.
