Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda meant America was mostly alone at the U.N.

President Donald Trump participates in a U.N. Security Council meeting on counter-proliferation Wednesday at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s second appearance at the U.N. General Assembly did not get the response he probably sought from the 193 countries gathered in New York this week.

Some leaders and diplomats openly laughed at his boasts. He failed to win support for his hardline policies on Iran, Venezuela, an international war crimes court, climate change and migration.

French President Emmanuel Macron scolded him, accusing him of abandoning the foundation of today’s world order and global cooperation enshrined by the U.N. itself.

In the end, Trump’s “America first” agenda meant America was mostly alone during his four days at the U.N. this week.

Leaders who once courted Trump, attempted to gain his ear, or tried to persuade him to support global institutions that long were U.S. foreign policy priorities, made clear they would forge on without him on multiple issues of concern.

When Trump and his aides sought to unify the world against Iran, for example, European allies made clear they disagreed with his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. They even joined Russia and China to announce a payments system intended to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

And when Trump chaired a Security Council meeting that he initially had wanted to focus on threats from Iran, he sat in silence as leader after leader praised the landmark disarmament deal he had quit, and the need for global cooperation.

In his General Assembly address, Trump similarly criticized a new U.N. pact aimed at easing the global refugee and migration crisis, saying “migration should not be governed by an international body” but by individual countries.

That drew almost no support. Officials later noted that virtually every nation had signed the accord except the United States and Hungary.

Some pushed back against Trump’s exhortation of patriotism and national sovereignty over globalism and multilateral efforts to combat the world’s ills.

“This path of unilateralism leads us directly to withdrawal and conflict, to widespread confrontation between everyone, to the detriment of all – even, eventually, of those who believe they are the strongest,” Macron told the General Assembly.

Trump largely ignored the criticism. Asked later about the laughter that his campaign-style boasts to the General Assembly had provoked, Trump said other leaders were laughing with him, not at him.