Donald Trump took the stage at the United Nations general assembly hall for the first time in six years to launch a full-on assault on the experiment in world government, which he described as a feckless, corrupt and pernicious global force that should be replaced by his own leadership instead.
Speaking on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Trump called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners, acccused the UN of leading a “globalist migration agenda”, and told national leaders that the world body was “funding an assault on your countries.”
“It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders,” he said in a headline speech to world leaders and visiting delegations in the grand general assembly hall in midtown Manhattan. “You have to end it now… Your countries are going to hell.”
Directly addressing European leaders, he accused them of “destroying your heritage” and of allowing international migration because of misplaced “political correctness”.
“Your countries are being ruined,” he also said, pointing to UN programs that he said provide food, shelter and debit cards to fund migrant journeys to the United States. “The UN is funding an assault on Western countries”.
He repeated an offer to levy heavy tariffs on Russia in order to end its invasion of Ukraine, but said that European countries would first have to cease buying Russian energy products.
“Inexcusably, even Nato countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products, which I found out about two weeks ago, and I wasn’t happy,” he said. “Think of it, they’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one?”
Critics have said that Trump is seeking to shirk US leadership in ending the war in Ukraine by passing the onus for negotiating a ceasefire to Europe. The foreign minister of Hungary, one of the most sympathetic countries to Russia in Europe and Nato, told the Guardian yesterday that his country would not stop buying Russian oil.
Repeating a dubious claim that he had solved seven wars during his eight-month administration, Trump said that the United Nations had only offered “empty words” and had not helped him “finalize” the negotiations.
“The UN has such tremendous potential, but it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential,” he said. “All they seem to do is write a really strongly-worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action.”
.
Trump also attacked green energy initiatives as redistributing manufacturing power from the developed world to “polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune”.
“Immigration and the high cost of so called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet,” he said. “You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you are going to be great again.”
Practically the only country he had kind words for during the speech was El Salvador for the “successful and professional job they’ve done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country”. The Trump administration has paid El Salvador to receive more than 200 Venezuelan migrants it claimed were members of criminal gangs.
More details soon…
