LOSERVILLE
Rips ‘biz as usual,’ red tape at international body
the United Nations.
Trump will spend most of the week in meetings and receptions with the UN, an organization he fiercely criticized before taking office.
As a candidate and President-elect, Trump said the UN was “not a friend of democracy” and dismissed it as “a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” He promised major, but ambiguous, changes to come once he was sworn in.
His greatest test will come Tuesday, when Trump will give a speech to the entire 193-member General Assembly. It will be the first time many world leaders wary of his leadership will hear him speak.
In the address, Trump is expected to call on other nations to unite in opposition against North Korea, which has stepped up its threats this year with nuclear and longrange weapons tests.
Trump is also likely to speak about the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which he has condemned as a bad decision by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Trump faces an Oct. 15 deadline to determine whether he will deem the deal a success, and his UN address will likely reveal his decision.
During a meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a Trump ally and staunch critic of the Iran deal — Trump told reporters they would “see very soon” whether the U.S. will stick with the Iran agreement.
Trump as a candidate vowed to cancel the deal, which relieves U.S., UN and European Union sanctions on Iran if it complies with agreements to cut down on its nuclear weapons stockpile.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani issued a stern warning to Trump as the decision looms.
“Exiting such an agreement would carry a high cost for the United States of America, and I do not believe Americans would be willing to pay such a high cost for something that will be useless for them,” Rouhani told CNN on Monday.
Trump also met with French President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the President and First Lady Melania Trump for France’s military parade in the center of Paris on Bastille Day in July.
Trump said the two-hour procession was a “tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France” and said he’d like to do the same thing here.
“Because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4 in Washington, down Pennsylvania Ave.,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to try and top it.”
Dozens of protesters near the UN building demonstrated against Rouhani’s violent rule of Iran through the day, while others rallied against Trump and other world leaders.
As Trump departed the headquarters, he paraphrased his campaign slogan to make clear that he never thought much of the UN. “I think the main message is, ‘Make the United Nations great.’ Not ‘again,’ ” he said about his address to the General Assembly.
“Make the United Nations great. Such tremendous potential, and I think we’ll be able to do this.”