President Donald Trump used his address to the United Nations on Tuesday to condemn that body as an institution unable to, like his administration, bring about world peace. He said that all over the world, there are “globalist institutions that have significantly decayed the world order.”
Trump attacked the UN for its alleged inability to generate world peace and claimed only he was fighting for peace around the world. “It’s too bad that I had to do all these things instead of the United Nations,” he said. At the time of his speech, it was clear to the nations of the world that U.S. policy in the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa, and Asia and Trump’s bombastic threats against Panama, Greenland, Canada and Brazil, among many other countries, were contributing nothing to peace.
The countries gathered at the UN were also well aware of his long-standing hatred of the world body.
The day he was inaugurated eight months ago, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the UN’s World Health Organization and removed the U.S. from the UN’s Human Rights Council. He also ordered the U.S. to pull out of any of hundreds of intergovernmental organizations that did not promote an “America First” agenda.
If any of the 140 government leaders who met at the UN this week expected Trump to help, at least in a small way, to promote world peace, they were severely disappointed. He clearly showed, for example, that under his leadership the U.S. will not promote a two-state solution to Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians. He claimed such a development would be a “ploy” to help Hamas.
Likewise, if any has hoped he might nudge the world’s biggest corporate polluters a bit in the direction of curbing death-dealing carbon emissions, those hopes were also dashed when he said that attempts to control polluters, along with open borders, were helping destroy civilization in Europe.
Tried to lecture the world
He spent much of his almost hour-long speech lecturing to the countries gathered on why they should follow his approach to immigration, why they should ditch their efforts to mitigate climate change, and why they should do a host of other things his way.
The U.S. president said nothing to indicate he would stop threatening countries that don’t go along with his policies. A good example is Brazil, on which he has imposed gargantuan tariffs because they have prosecuted their former fascist President Jair Bolsonaro.
All he would say about that particular threat was that he saw Brazil’s President Lula in the hallway, and that they embraced and that they would meet in the future. Trump has imposed major retaliatory tariffs on Brazil and has also hit some Brazilian officials with sanctions.
Trump said his administration is using import taxes as “a defense mechanism,” saying essentially that he will bully other countries to follow his rules.
He is getting heat at home because the real cost of those tariffs is being borne by the working-class majority in the U.S., who are dealing with the rising prices they are causing.
Trump repeated the lies he told about the U.S economy when he was in Britain last week, claiming in front of world leaders that inflation is low and that the economy is strong. It is clear to them that he lied about this, too, and that the reality in the U.S. is rising prices, especially for essentials, and rising unemployment.
Trump doubled down on his racism with remarks directed at majority-white countries in Europe. He called immigration policies and climate policies there a “double-tailed monster” that’s “ruining Europe.” His racism was particularly blunt on the topic of what he called “the unmitigated immigration disaster.”
“If you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before, that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail. I’m the president of the United States, but I worry about Europe. I love Europe, I love the people of Europe. And I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration, that double-tailed monster that destroys everything in its wake.”
Then he directly addressed European leaders: “You’re doing it because you want to be nice. You want to be politically correct, and you’re destroying your heritage.”
Delegates gathered there were also aware that, contrary to Trump’s claims, his immigration policies are causing economic damage in the U.S., not to mention fueling a vicious right-wing attack not just on immigrant rights but on the rights of all Americans.
Trump urged European countries to abandon green energy and falsely claimed that environmentalists had lied to the people of the world when, in the last century, they said that by 2000, there would be “global catastrophe” if clean energy plans were not adopted.
Said scientists lied
He said scientists predicted some nations might be “wiped off the map” by now, but insisted that’s “not happening.”
Actually, climate change has indeed triggered rising sea levels and intensifying storms that have caused small island nations to begin disappearing under the ocean. The UN delegates know full well that climate change has ravaged the U.S. by costing enormous sums of money for disaster response, cleanup, and even the deaths of many people.
Nonetheless, Trump insisted that clean energy programs were “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world in my opinion.”
He said “all of these predictions were wrong” and “made by stupid people,” adding, “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
Trump bragged that he has the answer to crime, shown by his crackdown on and occupation of Washington, D.C. He said that because he flooded the streets with National Guard troops, it is “a totally safe city,” and he invited the entire UN General Assembly to go there “for dinner.”
“I welcome you to come,” Trump said. “In fact, we’ll have dinner together at a local restaurant, and we’ll be able to walk. We don’t have to go by an armor-plated vehicle.”
According to the Associated Press, Trump went to dinner earlier this month at a seafood restaurant a few blocks from the White House to show it was safe even for him to venture out. He rode over in his bulletproof limousine, safe from the proliferation of gun violence he has green-lighted by his subservience to the gun lobby.
Trump also bragged that he bombed and sunk two boats he claimed were carrying drugs. Again, everyone at the UN knew he had violated international law by doing so, and that the boats, contrary to his claims, could never have made it to the United States regardless of what they were carrying. The delegates were also aware that both Democratic and GOP lawmakers had condemned the sinking of the boats.
“Let’s put it this way,” the U.S. bully-in-chief told the UN delegates: “People don’t like to take big loads of drugs in boats anymore,” he said, promising more attacks if he deems it necessary. “Please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he said after the two attacks that reportedly killed 14 people.
Trump reserved some of his most arrogant lecturing, however, for the topic of immigration. “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. I can tell you, I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” Trump declared.
It is doubtful that any of the leaders from countries seriously attempting to grapple with the problems of their nations were taken in by the boisterous wannabe dictator. He showed the world on Tuesday that as long as he and his MAGA forces are in power in the U.S., the world faces a tremendous danger. Movements around the world and increasingly in the U.S. are aware of the danger and mobilizing to end it. It can only be hoped that they will succeed.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.
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