In bumpy UN dealings, Trump found backing on North Korea, isolation on Iran
Though famously sceptical of the UN, US President Donald Trump harnessed its collective power to impose crushing sanctions on North Korea in a bid to start talks with Pyongyang, but faces frustration over a similar push on Iran.
While the UN Security Council was unified on North Korea, there is almost total opposition to the Trump administration’s assertion that it has triggered a return of all UN sanctions on Iran, using a process agreed under a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran that Washington quit two years ago.
Diplomats expect Iran to be a focus when Trump addresses the annual UN meeting of world leaders on Tuesday from the White House just days after a deadline passes that Washington says requires all countries to extend an arms embargo and reimpose other sanctions on Tehran.
It will be the fourth UN speech by Trump, who is seeking re-election on November 3 and espouses an “America first” approach often at odds with the multilateralism that governs the world body. Diplomats gasped during his debut when he threatened “fire and fury” on North Korea and laughed the second year when he boasted about his accomplishments.
After years of US rhetoric on Iran at the UN, Washington said it took action at the 15-member Security Council last month that it said would lead to a return of all UN sanctions on Iran this weekend. But 13 members, including America’s long-time allies, said the US move has no legal effect and diplomats say few countries are likely to implement the measures, which were lifted under the deal between world powers and Iran that aimed to stop Tehran developing nuclear weapons.
Despite his disregard for the UN, Trump got off to a good start in his first year in office: the Security Council unanimously agreed to a US-led push to bolster sanctions on North Korea three times after Pyongyang tested long-range ballistic missiles and carried out a nuclear test. In 2018, then US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley recalled that she told Trump: “We would not be in the situation we are with North Korea without the UN.”
The pressure allowed Trump to open a diplomatic door to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un aimed at Pyongyang’s denuclearisation. But despite three meetings, no progress has been made and Security Council unity appears shaky as China and Russia are suggesting it consider lifting some sanctions on Pyongyang to encourage further talks.
Trump, however, says his diplomacy is working as Kim has not carried out any nuclear or long-range missile tests since 2017.
Trump has turned his back on decades of US leadership at the UN, by pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organisation, the UN cultural agency Unesco, a global accord to tackle climate change and opposed a UN migration pact. Washington has cut funding for the UN Population Fund and the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees.
Nevertheless, Trump has admitted that he sees potential in the UN and has used the US position as the organisation’s biggest funder to push SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres to carry out reforms.
Trump, it turns out, also pushed for UN involvement when his diplomats would not.
When North Korea invited then UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman to visit Pyongyang in 2017 amid Trump’s blunt rhetoric and sanctions campaign, Trump overruled opposition from his own officials to say Feltman should go.
Six months later, Trump had his first meeting with Kim in Singapore.