‘Rocket Man is on a suicide mission ... ’

The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea DONALD TRUMP

Trump said. “When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.”

In perhaps his most important speech on the international stage, Mr Trump backed down on his earlier criticism of the UN, which he had described as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time”.

“Our success depends on a coalition of strong and independent nations that embrace their sovereignty to promote security, prosperity, and peace for themselves and for the world,” Mr Trump said.

“We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government. But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.

“This is the beautiful vision of this institution, and this is foundation for co-operation and success.”

Turning to strife-torn Venezuela, he said socialism there, in Cuba and the former Soviet Union had only delivered “anguish and devastation and failure”.

“The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been faithfully implemented,” he said.

On Monday night, the President warned the US was ready to act against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime.

“The Venezuelan people are starving,” he said.

“The country is collapsing, their democratic institutions are being destroyed.”

The speech, which Mr Trump appeared to read straight from a teleprompter, won praise from world leaders.

“In over 30 years in my experience with the UN, I never heard a bolder or more courageous speech,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who met with Mr Trump for the first time over a lunch also attended by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, said “parts of the President’s speech had been warmly received”.

“In fact, if you were present, there were times when there was spontaneous applause,” she said.

“At the lunch meeting today, the President spoke about the challenges facing the UN and facing the UN Security Council and there seemed to be a considerable level of agreement.”

Mr Trump’s critics, including his 2016 campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, said the speech wasn’t appropriate for the UN.

“I thought it was very dark, dangerous, not the kind of message that the leader of the greatest message in the world should be delivering,” Ms Clinton told talk show host Stephen Colbert.

“What I hoped the President would have said is something along the lines of: ‘We view this as dangerous to our allies, to the region and even to our country. We call on all nations to work with us to try to end the threat caused to us by Kim Jong-un’.”