Trump’s defiant debut at the U.N.
What happened
President Donald Trump struck a defiant and confrontational tone in his maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week, vowing to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the U.S. or its allies, denouncing the 2015 nuclear disarmament deal with Iran as an “embarrassment,” and urging fellow world leaders to embrace “national sovereignty.” In a fiery address that drew mostly stony silence, some light applause, and occasional gasps from some members of the 193 international delegations, Trump denounced the “depraved” regime in Pyongyang for recent ballistic missile and nuclear tests, and said Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un— whom he mocked as “Rocket Man”—was on “a suicide mission.” Describing “rogue regimes” as “the scourge of our planet,” the president suggested he would seek to renegotiate the “one-sided” nuclear deal with the “murderous” government in Tehran (see Talking Points), and threatened the “socialist dictatorship” in Venezuela with further sanctions. Trump also warned of the growing threat from “radical Islamic terrorism,” and promised he wouldn’t allow “loser terrorists” to “tear up the entire world.”
In an explanation of his “America first” foreign policy, Trump promised that the U.S. would “forever be a great friend to the world,” but said he wouldn’t let his country “be taken advantage of” or enter into “one-sided” agreements. He implored other world leaders to do the same, stressing the value of “strong, sovereign nations.” The U.S. doesn’t “seek to impose our way of life on anyone,” he said, “but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.”
What the editorials said
Much of what the president told delegates in New York was “directly on point,” said the Los Angeles Times. The U.N. should do more to address violations of human rights and national sovereignty by the authoritarian regimes in Pyongyang, Tehran, and Caracas. But the president’s message was undermined by his “needlessly offensive” tone and “juvenile” insults. Threatening to annihilate an entire country of 25 million people; describing Iran as a “rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos”—this “guns-blazing rhetoric” may sound tough, but it achieves nothing and is in fact counterproductive.