Image Credits: Gage Skidmore, Flickr)
On Tuesday, Sept. 23, President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in a confused and inflammatory 58-minute-long speech. The sentiments shared by the President are nothing new for those who have followed his misguided approach to foreign policy, but this most recent address to the world’s premier international organization represents a chillingly steadfast commitment to his dangerous ideas.
Amidst a global environment rife with political and economic uncertainty, Trump reasserted a vision for America’s role on the international stage that fundamentally misunderstands the well-established calculus of U.S. foreign policy.
Standing before representatives from over 190 countries, Trump asked, “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” If the President had the historical knowledge and strategic foresight that is becoming of his office, he would know the answer to this question. In any case, the United Nations is not the lazy or meaningless institution that Trump would like to portray it as. Rather, the UN serves as a massive projection of American power on the global stage.
The United Nations represents perhaps the greatest achievement in the realm of international law, and the U.S. was a founding member as it began to take shape after World War II. Consequently, our nation holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC), the world’s most influential supranational decision making body. To the extent that international law is or can be binding (which was the subject of an entire class I took last semester), the UNSC has the authority to pass resolutions that member states are obligated to follow. These resolutions concern issues of international security and human rights, which is certainly no small or insignificant duty. Also on the Security Council are China and Russia — to posture as if this body is defunct is to abdicate the responsibility of global governance to American adversaries.
Having already lost much of the United States’ goodwill through just eight months of governance, President Trump offered no olive branches to our international partners. Instead, he chose to ridicule them in an off-putting and arrogant speech. In what has become one of the more circulated lines of his monologue, Trump lambasted the UNGA over what he sees as a migration “crisis.” “I’m really good at this stuff,” Trump said. “Your countries are going to hell.”
It is a loaded statement that is every bit as childish and ill-informed as it sounds. It rarely inspires much confidence when someone feels the need to proclaim how good they are at something. If your dentist, right before a root canal, pompously told you how great they are, I suspect you’d have some nerve-wracking second thoughts.
Further, the implication that the liberal democracies of Western Europe ought to adopt the unconstitutional and disruptive immigration policies of the Trump administration is laughable. No country which values the rule of law is currently aspiring to the United States’ system of extraditions to foreign megaprisons and the camping out of courthouses. To imply that there is anything productive to take away from this destructive and illegal policy is ignorant to the highest degree.
Echoing a core tenet of his administration’s foreign policy which grows more bewildering by the day, Trump reaffirmed the United States’ steadfast commitment to Israel amidst a growing tide of Western nations recognizing Palestinian statehood. This has all come in the wake of a UN report which has officially recognized the atrocities taking place in Gaza as a genocide.
To say that this should be heartbreaking for every American is a profound understatement. In all fairness, the Biden administration stood idly by Israel’s destruction for over a year, so this is not a problem unique to Trump. American disregard for Palestinian lives is a chronic issue. History will look back on the United States as a nation that not only allowed, but actively encouraged the genocide of tens of thousands of men, women and children. For a nation supposedly founded on the values of life, liberty and justice, this is inexcusable. It is a legacy from which we will never recover.
In another profoundly incorrect rambling that spits in the face of reality, President Trump also attacked the international community for their commitments to green energy. Trump said of climate change, a phenomenon which the scientific community is in consensus on, that it is, “The greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” Although Trump would know a lot about con jobs, global warming is all too real.
He falsely claimed that green energies, such as wind and solar, are too expensive and too weak to generate adequate power. The United Nations, though — the very body Trump stood in front of as he rattled off these lies — had found in a July report that solar and wind are “almost always” cheaper and more effective than other sources. The report noted that the world seems to have reached a “positive tipping point,” where the proliferation of green energies would only increase. Facts and reason be damned, though. If our brilliant businessman President wants to hawk fossil fuels on the rest of the world to enrich his buddies, that’s just what he’ll do.
Trump said that climate change predictions have been made by “stupid people,” despite some of the ugliest consequences of global warming having already revealed themselves. A nepo baby who bankrupted a casino calling the world’s most renowned scientists stupid? I’ll leave the judgement of how ironic that is up to you. As for me, I’ll summarize my feelings using a quote from the man himself: “Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.”
As our 79-year-old President bellows out the incomprehensible lies of a decaying mind, the world laughs at us. America is no longer the reliable partner or advocate for democracy that nations once looked up to. We are a civil society on the decline, fast tracked by the most ill-intentioned and uninformed among us. If “America First” was ever a serious policy — and it isn’t — Donald Trump would understand that U.S. influence is inextricably linked to our vast international presences and multilateral diplomatic stratagems. To throw out decades of coalition-building is not the policy of a competent presidential administration. It is the spite-fueled temper tantrum of a man-child surrounded by yes-men and sycophants.
For at least the next three years, this is our unfortunate reality. Fundamentally, we must understand that none of Trump’s foreign policy measures will actually help to achieve the campaign promises he repeatedly heralded. A tariff regime will not lower costs, it will only raise them. Supporting a genocide and cowtowing to Vladimir Putin will not bring back American respect, it will only evaporate what little we had left. Fighting an imaginary war against the made-up evils of green energy will not usher in a new era of energy independence and prosperity, it will only ensure that Americans continue to lose their livelihoods and die in horrific natural disasters. Donald Trump is an embarrassment and a failure who betrays the very ideas this nation was founded upon. We can only hope to stem the tide of his worst impulses by showing up to the ballot box every single year, to include this November. Rebuilding American respect on the global stage may take a generation after the unforced fumbles of this administration, but it is work that will have to be done.
Carlo Constantine is a fourth year Political Science major with a minor in Journalism. cc1031591@wcupa.edu