\n<\/p>\n
The world laughed at Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Seven years ago, Trump was just a few sentences into his annual United Nations General Assembly address when most of the gathered leaders of the 193 countries represented began to chuckle\u2014and then outright guffaw. A visibly startled Trump had been boasting about his administration\u2019s successes; he had long claimed that other nations mocked his presidential predecessors, and now it was happening to him. Trump later publicly downplayed the moment. But aides at the time told us he was seething.<\/p>\n
No one is taking him lightly now.<\/p>\n
Trump returned to the United Nations rostrum today for the first time since he reclaimed the White House. The moment underscored how dramatically his relationship with the world has changed. Trump has led a campaign to upend the global order that the United States built following World War II. He has bent foreign leaders to his will while antagonizing allies by musing about a return to an age of American imperialism, when the U.S. could simply seize the territory it wanted. He and his advisers have launched trade wars and aligned themselves with movements that have eroded democracies and supported rising authoritarians.<\/p>\n
In his meandering, grievance-filled speech today, Trump belittled the threat of climate change, warned about excessive immigration, and touted his role as global peacemaker even though the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have escalated in recent months. He mocked alliances and the United Nations itself, outlining something of a Trump Doctrine that prioritizes individual nations\u2019 sovereignty and a transactional approach that rewards only those nations that can do something for the United States\u2014or him personally.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat: \u2018Trump was right about everything.\u2019 And I don\u2019t say that in a braggadocios way, but it\u2019s true,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been right about everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, in some ways, has withdrawn the United States from the world. He has weakened ties with traditionally close allies, derided globalism and curtailed U.S. soft power by slashing everything from foreign aid to overseas government-funded media. Since returning to office, Trump has heralded America\u2019s exit from the UN\u2019s global health agency, its human-rights council, and its cultural organization. He has also cut funding for a wide array of UN activities, including food assistance and aid to refugees and children. As a result of this major reduction from its biggest funder, the UN has secured funding for only a fifth of this year\u2019s required budget for humanitarian activities, a top UN official said this month.<\/p>\n
Matthew Kroenig, vice president of the Atlantic Council, told us that Trump\u2019s approach reflected a Republican Party consensus that global institutions like the UN have long been broken, allowing Russia the power to thwart Security Council measures on Ukraine or enabling decades of General Assembly resolutions critical of the U.S. ally Israel.<\/p>\n
Although Trump has always been suspicious of the United Nations and other organizations of \u201cglobal governance,\u201d his approach was tempered during his first term by a staff who hoped to exercise American leadership in a more traditional way. In his 2018 address, Trump emphasized his commitment to not just championing American interests but also \u201cstanding up for the world.\u201d In his second term, Trump is unapologetically America first, leaving allies scrambling to reorient their global blueprints as he hews to more of a lone-dog approach. Not only is the United States no longer the world\u2019s sole superpower; it is less interested in bringing the world along in pursuit of its priorities.<\/p>\n
That is visible in the decision by Canada, France, Britain, and other close allies to move forward with recognizing a Palestinian state, leaving America and Israel ever more isolated. Trump warned against recognition again today, suggesting that it rewards Hamas for its October 7, 2023, terror attack. But he has also privately fumed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to expand the war.<\/p>\n
European nations, meanwhile, are attempting to provide security aid and guarantees to Ukraine to compensate for the unpredictability of future American support. And other reordering is under way as well. Richard Gowan, an expert on the UN at the International Crisis Group, told us that other nations are moving ahead without Washington on issues including the environment and pandemic preparedness. (That strategy won\u2019t work on matters of security, where Washington remains the sine qua non.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an assumption that Trump was an aberration and that the next president would come back and reset the clock,\u201d Gowan said. \u201cThat\u2019s no longer the case. So people are taking it much more seriously this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than a forum for international cooperation, the United Nations has turned into another arena for global competition. \u201cThe purpose is to muscularly advocate the American view and push back against the bad guys,\u201d Kroenig told us of Trump\u2019s approach. (Although Trump in a post-speech meeting with UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said he was behind the organization \u201c100 percent,\u201d aides have told us he believes that the organization is feckless and easily ignored.)<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s shifting strategy for the Ukraine conflict took another turn today when, following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he posted on social media his belief that Kyiv could eventually recapture much of its territory from Russia, given Moscow\u2019s economic woes. This was perhaps Trump\u2019s most pro-Ukraine statement yet\u2014he previously largely deferred to Russia in the conflict\u2014and it comes just weeks after he insisted that Kyiv would have to give up territory. But Trump still emphasized that the primary support would need to come from the European Union and NATO: Although the U.S. would continue to sell weapons to NATO, it would not increase its aid to Ukraine, and he made no mention of further cease-fire talks.<\/p>\n
As Trump spoke, he kept mentioning \u201cpeace.\u201d Driven by his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize, the president has invested heavily this year in brokering peace deals. He repeated his claim today about having ended seven wars, though some of the affected countries dispute his involvement. He also warned European allies that they must stop buying Russian energy before he makes good on his promise to sanction Moscow over its Ukraine invasion. Many in Europe see that challenge as a nonstarter; Russia-friendly EU countries such as Hungary and Slovakia have refused to stop doing business with Moscow, as has Turkey, a key NATO member. Some diplomats feel like Trump knows it will go nowhere but will still use their noncompliance as an excuse to, once more, back down against Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s new tack also means that stalwart U.S. allies are rethinking their economic and security reliance on the United States and finding new partners on climate change and other priorities. Trump today declared that the concept of a \u201ccarbon footprint\u201d is a \u201choax,\u201d and that climate change is the \u201cgreatest con job that\u2019s ever happened to the world.\u201d (China may eventually fill the vacuum on the issue, including in renewable-energy development.) Although no nation can afford to walk away from America\u2019s political and economic might\u2014meaning foreign leaders must woo Trump to get the best possible deal on tariffs\u2014the president\u2019s threats to violate allies\u2019 sovereignty represent a before-and-after moment for countries such as Canada, Denmark, and Panama. Trump also boasted about his recent military strikes against boats that he has claimed were being steered by Venezuelan drug dealers, saying, \u201cThere aren\u2019t too many boats that are traveling on the seas by Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rapid global reordering has left allies unsettled. \u201cThis is not a transition,\u201d Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said at a Council on Foreign Relations event yesterday. \u201cThis is a rupture.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Trump was introduced in the famed Turtle Bay assembly hall today, his fellow world leaders applauded. They then took his insults, sitting stone-faced when Trump declared not just his greatness but that their \u201ccountries are going to hell.\u201d And only when Trump teased them about a busted teleprompter and broken escalator did they chuckle. They laughed with Trump, not at him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The world laughed at Donald Trump. Seven years ago, Trump was just a few sentences into his annual United Nations General Assembly address when most of the gathered leaders of the 193 countries represented began to chuckle\u2014and then outright guffaw. A visibly startled Trump had been boasting about his administration\u2019s successes; he had long claimed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[14248,2145,500,81,3677],"class_list":{"0":"post-23356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-dares","9":"tag-mock","10":"tag-nations","11":"tag-trump","12":"tag-united"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}