Meet Nikki Haley: Indian-origin former US ambassador to the UN, set to run as Republican nominee for president

A former South Carolina governor who served as the UN ambassador under Trump from 2017 to 2018, Haley is expected to set out her campaign plans later today in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina.

Get excited! Time for a new generation.

Let’s do this! 👊 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/BD5k4WY1CP

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 14, 2023

Daughter of Indian immigrants

Haley was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina, to Indian immigrants. Her parents hailed from Punjab and worked as teachers while also running a clothing store in rural South Carolina. She was raised as a Sikh but converted to Christianity after marriage to Michael Haley in 1996.

Nikki Haley spoke of her experiences growing up in the American South as a daughter of Indian immigrants in her 2020 Republican National Convention speech. “I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” she said. “They came to America and settled in a small Southern town. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a Black and white world. We faced discrimination and hardship, but my parents never gave in to grievance and hate,” Nikki Haley told the crowd.

She graduated from Clemson University in 1994 with a degree in accounting and helped expand her parents’ clothing business.

Governor of South Carolina

Nikki Haley was elected to the state legislature of South Carolina in 2004.

In 2010, she became the first woman to become the Governor of South Carolina and only the second person of Indian descent to hold the post in any US state after Bobby Jindal (Louisiana).

Haley’s tenure as governor was one of contrasts. On one hand, she was hard on immigration. She voted in favour of a law that requires employers to be able to prove that newly-hired employees are legal residents of the United States, and also requires all immigrants to carry documentation at all times proving that they are legally in the United States.

On the other hand, Haley was also sensitive to certain race-related issues. She came under national spotlight in 2015 for removing the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol following the murder of nine black churchgoers by white supremacist Dylann Roof.

Haley’s ability to tread a unique conservative line in the US’s polarised political climate has been hailed as her biggest gift.

US ambassador to the United Nations

Nikki Haley further gained national recognition during her tenure as US ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump presidency.

During her tenure, she was known as a vocal critic of Russia, Iran and China. She also spoke against North Korean missile testing, threatening to increase US military presence in the region to counteract any aggression from Kim Jong-un. Haley also repeatedly spoke in favour of Israel, even charging the United Nations of having “bullied Israel for a very long time”.

The recent video in which she announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination harked back to her foreign affairs experience.

“China and Russia are on the march. They all think we can be bullied, kicked. You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels,” Haley said, launching a scathing attack on the two countries. Of late, US relations with both Russia and China have been tense, with the Ukraine War and the spy-balloon controversy at the top of the public’s mind.

A hot-and-cold relationship with Donald Trump

Nikki Haley has shared a hot-and-cold relationship with Trump. She was highly critical of him during his presidential run in 2016 before ending up as his ambassador to the UN. She left the Trump administration in 2018, and has since criticised Trump multiple times.

She was critical of the Republican Party’s claims of election fraud as well as the January 6 insurrection of the US Capitol encouraged by Trump himself. However, in 2022, she seemed to have made amends with Trump, campaigning on behalf of multiple election deniers.

Notably, Nikki Haley had previously said that she would not run for president if Trump decides to run again – a stance she has now reversed.