Nikki Haley resigns as Trump's UN ambassador

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is leaving the administration "at the end of the year."

Trump spoke as he and Haley met in the Oval Office, shortly after word came of her plans to resign.

He called Haley a "very special" person, adding that she told him six months ago that she might want to take some time off. Trump said that together, they had "solved a lot of problems."

TRT World's Jon Brain has more.

It's the latest shake-up in the turbulent Trump administration just weeks before the November midterm election.

Haley’s resignation was a closely guarded secret. Congressional Republicans involved in foreign policy matters and some key US allies did not get advance word from Haley or the White House.

'I’m not running in 2020'

No reason for the resignation was immediately provided. But Haley, who is speculated to hold aspirations for higher office, said at the White House: "No I’m not running in 2020."

Haley, 46, was appointed to the UN post in November 2016 and last month coordinated Trump's second trip to the United Nations, including his first time chairing the UN Security Council.

Before she was named by Trump to her UN post, Haley was governor of South Carolina, the first woman to hold the post. 

She was reelected in 2014.

TRT World's Nicole Johnston reports. 

Policy disagreements

Last month Haley wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post discussing her policy disagreements but also her pride in working for Trump. 

It came in response to an anonymous essay in The New York Times by a senior administration official that alleged there to be a secret "resistance" effort from the right in Trump's administration and that there were internal discussions of invoking the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office.

"I proudly serve in this administration, and I enthusiastically support most of its decisions and the direction it is taking the country," Haley wrote. 

"But I don't agree with the president on everything."

As governor, she developed a national reputation as a racial conciliator who led the charge to bring down the Confederate flag at the Statehouse and guided South Carolina through one of its darkest moments, the massacre at a black church.