In his speech to the general assembly on Tuesday, President Donald Trump had a Clarion message for the world: doing what I did for America in just eight months – especially to stop immigration and put an end to green energy policies – and you too can transform your “failing” countries into enviable success.
In a disjointed discourse which was sometimes jocular and tediously political (with repeated attacks against the “disaster” of the Biden administration), Mr. Trump chose to be on world mass migration and “the hoax with global warming” as the two key threats of the time of international peace, security and prosperity.
“The high cost of immigration and the so-called green energy destroys a large part of our world,” said the president by finishing, highlighting in particular the impact of these double threats for “Europe I love”.
Why we wrote this
While the United Nations General Assembly has opened in New York, President Donald Trump told Member States that immigration and green hoaxes are the main threats to international peace and prosperity.
Earlier, he advised the delegates of the 193 UN member states: “If you do not move away from the green energy scam, your country will fail.”
The speech has stressed how much more than ever, an American president brought to the international scene that cultural wars dividing the Americans at home, according to some international political analysts.
“What we have heard several times are the contrasts between Trump Trump in the long term and Biden in the long term, and an American president citing the two UN issues at the heart of American political polarization in a way that she had never been done before,” explains Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior scholarship holder at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington Research Institute foreign.
“Take this to the UN,” he adds, “demonstrates the intensification of the politicization of international security issues”.
America’s golden age
Mr. Trump, who is known to love everything that is golden, told his audience that they were witnesses “the golden age of America”. Repeating a line he often used in his second mandate, he said that “in eight months … We are the warmest country in the world, no other country is even close.”
He attracted laughter – unlike eight years ago, it was laughter with him, not at home – when he reprimanded the UN for giving him a defective televimmer and an escalator who stopped when he was halfway.
And he repeated his assertion that he has already arrested seven wars in his second term – conflicts he said that the UN had not sometimes resolved after decades of fighting and violence.
“In just eight months, I ended seven essential wars,” he said, “no American president has done anything nearby.”
He cited the brief war of this year between Israel and Iran, fighting between Cambodia and Thailand, and the dispute of length of length between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others.
Many international security experts dispute whether several of these conflicts have indeed been resolved. But that did not prevent Trump from saying that many believe – in fact, he said that “everyone” believes – he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sources close to the president said that Mr. Trump wants the international recognition that the Nobel would bring. It is said that he wanted former President Barack Obama to received the award, even if, according to Mr. Trump, he did nothing to deserve it.
Trump recognized that he could not arrest two of the greatest wars, those of Gaza and Ukraine. But he said that Hamas alone was responsible for destruction and loss of lives in Gaza – winning the only applause to interrupt his speech when he said to Hamas: “Release the hostages now!”
And he blamed the Russian president Vladimir Putin for his inability to end the war in Ukraine, saying that war “does not make Russia appear well, that makes Russia bad.”
By saying that “action” stops wars, he repeated his desire to impose debilitating sanctions on Russia – but only if Europe, which, according to him, finances the Russian war machine thanks to energy purchases – agrees to do the same.
Later, after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump announced on social networks that he now believed that with the help of Europe, Ukraine could take over all the territories occupied by Russia.
Internationally cooperating
Mr. Trump questioned the utility of the UN – sometimes claiming that the international organization often aggravates things, as he did taking into account policies that encourage mass migration.
Throughout his second term, the American chief has demonstrated a preference for bilateral relations and high power policy. And from security and trade to immigration, a large part of the international community has adopted and flattered it as the best way to stay on the good side of the United States.
“The speech leaves very big questioning points on how Trump and his administration see the UN and multilateralism more broadly and how they intend to approach them,” explains Trita Parsi, executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute, a group for reflection on foreign policy in Washington.
“The president seemed to blame the UN for many problems in the world, even by stressing what he said should be his usefulness in what this administration recognizes is no longer a unipolar world,” explains Dr. Parsi, co-author of a recent report promoting a refined world security order based on international law and multilateralism.
“The question now,” he adds, “is whether the UN can keep and even improve this usefulness while now” its role as “useful instrument for managing relations between major powers”.
