Trump at UN: Bluster over balance
The US president's speech at the UN General Assembly is never taken lightly. Nor should it be. Given that this year it would be Donald Trump who is known for his unpredictability and unorthodox stance, his speech was much anticipated. And for his part, Trump did not disappoint. He began with light-hearted barbs at the UN noting how the escalator malfunctioned when he was on it and further that the teleprompter was not working.
Trump did move on to more serious matters in his nearly hour-long speech and aired his complaints against the UN, Europe, climate change and the mayor of London. He called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners, accused the UN for a "globalist migration agenda", and told national leaders that the world body was "funding an assault".
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. 
"It's time to end the failed experiment of open borders," said Trump. "You have to end it now … Your countries are going to hell." Addressing European leaders, he said they were allowing international migration because of misplaced "political correctness". Pointing to UN programmes, Trump said they provide food, shelter and debit cards to fund immigrant journeys to the United States. "The UN is funding an assault on western countries."
"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," Trump said. "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."
"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."
Claiming that he has successfully ended seven wars during his eight-month administration, Trump said that the United Nations had only offered "empty words" and had not helped him "finalise" 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."
While the US president criticises the UN for being all talk and no action, he conveniently omits the part that this platform can only do so much as its member countries are willing to do. In fact, it may be said that even for instances when the UN has been intent to act, it was the veto from either the US or Russia (or its predecessor, the erstwhile Soviet Union), that has been its obstacle. These two countries, between themselves, have been responsible for encumbering UN action for most of the instances. And yet the US president turns around to put it all on the UN without owning up to any of it.
The US president's tone at the global forum quite clearly shows that he will not shirk away from using the country's diplomatic, political or economic heft to secure a suitable outcome. But such an attitude runs counter to the founding principles of equality of nations at the UN.
The other major point of President Trump's discontentment appears to be immigration. He made it quite clear that he wanted stricter immigration laws in Europe. But in so doing, the US president appears to have forgotten that both the US and the European economies owe much of their prosperity to immigration. After all, it was with the strength of migrant labour that these countries managed to flourish. But it was not merely with cheap labour that immigrants helped America or the European countries. Immigrants have been crucial for scientific advancement, technological innovation, entrepreneurship and so forth.
But Trump wasn't done yet. He called the Paris climate agreement a "con job" and ridiculed renewable energy sources like wind farms as a product of a green energy agenda that has brought countries closer to destruction.
As for Sadiq Khan, the mayor of a London, Trump said, "I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it's been changed, it's been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can't do that."
There have been some protests regarding his comments about Sadiq Khan. But US president is yet to be reminded that not only is it unbecoming of a US president to make such statements from such serious a podium but also that what he advocates goes very much against the essence of human rights and justice that the United Nations strives to uphold.
Comments