Nikki Haley marched in on her first day as Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations with a blunt warning to the world: "For those who don't have our backs, we're taking names."
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Australia has now gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure its name stays off Trump's naughty list.
With negotiations for a new treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons kicking off on Monday (New York time), Haley called an extraordinary press conference outside the UN to declare the US opposition to the talks.
And there, at her heels, was Australia.
At the very moment representatives from more than 120 countries were starting their negotiations inside, Australia stood with Trump's appointee and a group widely known as the "weasel countries" who are opposed to banning the bomb.
According to anti-nuclear campaigners, 21 countries joined Haley's protest. They included Albania, Turkey, Croatia, Romania, Poland, Estonia, Slovenia, Hungary and South Korea. Britain and France, both nuclear armed, also spoke against a ban. Other NATO allies joined in, although not all.
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Affairs Department confirmed Australia was represented at the press conference, but said the country was still "committed to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons".
This would be "pursued in an effective, determined and pragmatic way", the spokeswoman said.
Back in January, Haley had made plain the attitude the Trump administration would take to the world body.
"Our goal ... is to show value at the UN, and the way to show value is to show our strength, show our full voice," she declared. "Have the backs of our allies and make sure our allies have our backs as well.
"For those who don't have our backs, we're taking names, and we will make points to respond to that accordingly."
On Monday, after the protest at the UN, she told a key lobby group for Israel in Washington: "For anyone who says you can't get anything done at the UN, they need to know there's a new sheriff in town."
And she made the nuclear issue personal.
"As a mom, as a daughter, there is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic," Haley said.
"Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?"
Tilman Ruff, of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told Fairfax Media from New York that the US action was alarming and Australia was "aligning itself with the extremes of the Trump administration".
"What credibility does Australia have to criticise North Korea's reckless nuclear proliferation when it continues to claim protection itself through the very same weapons, and oppose efforts to ban them?" Dr Ruff said.
