Tired, toothless UN

When Donald Trump addresses the UN General Assembly later today, it is unlikely he will be heaping praise on an organisation with which he has enjoyed something of a love-hate relationship. The US president’s antipathy is said to date to the late Nineties, when he was thwarted in his efforts to undertake a multi-million dollar refurbishment of the organisation’s Manhattan headquarters. More recently, he has dismissed the UN as “just a club for people to get together”.

Yet Mr Trump should reflect on the fact that his administration has enjoyed some of its most notable foreign policy successes at the UN, where Washington has received staunch support for its tough approach towards North Korea. And, at a time when the White House appears intent on pursuing a policy of “America First”, the moral authority a properly functioning UN provides will be vital to resolving the wide variety of threats the world faces today.

But the UN can appear overly cumbersome, and Mr Trump was right to say it needs to “focus more on people, less on bureaucracy” in a speech in New York yesterday. Reforms would certainly help the UN direct its attention where it is needed, such as confronting the Burmese government over its appalling treatment of the Rohingya community, forced to flee in their thousands to Bangladesh.

The UN’S response to this crisis has been muted, to say the least, with officials admitting they do not have the resources to deal with such a humanitarian disaster. If the UN ran its affairs more efficiently, however, it might be able to mount an effective response to such calamities, rather than just stand idly by.