The UN Shows How Trump Is Pretty Much on His Own Now
At the General Assembly, world leaders who appeased the US president’s NATO and tariff demands are defying him on climate change, energy and other urgent issues.
The theme of this year’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York is “Better Together.” It’s a tag line that’s typical of the UN’s painstaking messaging by committee: cautious, vaguely optimistic and so blandly self-evident (it’s really just another way of saying the name of the institution itself) that it couldn’t possibly offend anyone.
Anyone, except Donald Trump. In his attention-grabbing address to the body on Tuesday, the US president took direct aim at the value of togetherness, assailing the UN, globalism, free trade, climate change, renewable energy, immigration and the competence of his fellow world leaders. “I’m really good at this stuff,” he told his peers. “Your countries are going to hell.”