Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
N. Korea risks war, Trump says at U.N. Little talk of unity as Iran, Syria also hit
UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to “totally destroy North Korea” if the U.S. is forced to defend itself or its allies against the renegade nation’s nuclear weapons program, making his case in a combative debut speech to the U.N. that laid out a stark, good-vs.-evil view of a globe riven by chaos and turmoil.
Trump’s broadsides against “rogue regimes,” North Korea chief among them, drew murmurs from the assembled world leaders. He said it was “far past time” for the world to confront Kim Jong Un, declaring that the North Korean leader’s pursuit of nuclear weapons poses a threat to “the entire world with an unthinkable loss of human life.”
“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime,” Trump said, mocking the North Korean leader even as he sketched out potentially cataclysmic consequences. The president himself decided to work the nickname into his speech just hours before he took the dais,
according to aides.
Trump spoke of his own nation’s “patience” but said that if “forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
The president urged nations to work together to stop Iran’s nuclear program and defeat “loser terrorists” who wage violence around the globe. He denounced “radical Islamic terrorism,” a label he had shied away from in recent months after trumpeting it on the campaign trail. He called Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government a “criminal regime.” He said violence-plagued regions of the world “are going to hell.” He made little mention of Russia.
He also decried the “disastrous rule” of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and urged the U.N. to step in.
He said there was still hope the U. N. could solve “many of these vicious and complex problems,” but he focused more on the problems than the hopes.
The president’s tone carried real-world implications for the future of the United Nations and the escalating confrontations with international outliers. In the space of 42 minutes, he upended decades of rhetorical support by the United States for the collective philosophy of the United Nations as he defended his America First policy. He repeatedly extolled “sovereignty” in a setting where the term traditionally has been brandished by nations like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea to deflect criticism.
“As president of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries first,” he said, generating light applause in parts of the chamber. But he argued that nationalism can be the foundation for strong nations to join common causes.
“If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph,” he said. “When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.”
His lashing of North Korea was a vigorous restatement of what’s been said by U.S. leaders before, but delivered with new intensity. After a litany of accusations — the starvation of millions, the abduction of a Japanese girl and more — he questioned the legitimacy of the communist government by referring to it as a “band of criminals.”
North Korea’s ambassador and another top diplomat left the General Assembly chamber before he spoke to boycott his speech, leaving behind two empty chairs.
Trump, who has previously warned of “fire and fury” if Pyongyang does not back down, claimed that “no one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea.” And he scolded that it was “an outrage” to enable and trade with North Korea, seeming to point a finger at the North’s principal trade partner China, although he did not mention it by name.
On Iran, Trump called the government a rogue state whose chief export is “violence, bloodshed and chaos.” He accused Tehran of squandering Iran’s wealth by supporting Syria’s Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Yemen’s Houthi rebel group.
Trump called the U. N.-backed Iran nuclear deal “an embarrassment” to the United States and suggested it was one of the worst international pacts ever struck. And he hinted that his administration, which has accused Tehran of aiding terrorism in the Middle East, could soon declare Iran out of compliance with the deal, which could unravel it.
“I don’t think you’ve heard the end of it,” Trump said. “Believe me.”
The administration must decide in mid- October whether it will certify that Iran is still in compliance with the agreement.
‘WORLD IN PIECES’
Trump’s speech came just minutes after U.N. Secretary-Antonio Guterres put “nuclear peril” as the gravest threat facing the world and warned that “fiery talk can lead to fatal misunderstandings.”
Guterres said a solution to North Korea’s activities must be political. “This is a time for statesmanship,” he stressed.
Beyond the nuclear threat, Guterres painted a grim picture of a troubled world facing grave challenges as people see rising insecurity, inequality, conflict and climate change in a world of polarized politics and fragmented societies.
“We are a world in pieces. We need to be a world at peace,” he said, later tweeting that “only together, as truly United Nations, can we build a peaceful world.”
France’s Emmanuel Macron urged world leaders to work together, even as America’s president emphasized nations’ own sovereignty.
Macron, a centrist who embraced internationalism during his campaign, vowed to press ahead with the Paris accord to combat global warming, although the U.S. has said it’s withdrawing from the agreement. In his speech and a subsequent news conference, Macron said he respects Trump’s decision but thinks it’s a mistake and will continue trying to persuade the American to reconsider.
Macron also said France won’t “close any door to dialogue” with North Korea and said it would be “a grave error” to unwind the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
“Today, more than ever before, we need multilateralism” to work on global warming, war, terrorism and other issues, Macron said.
“We can only address those challenges thought multilateralism,” he said, “not through survival of the fittest.”
By long tradition, Brazil’s leader is first to address the 193-member General Assembly — a custom carried on this year by President Michel Temer, who was charged last week with obstruction of justice and leading a criminal organization. Temer denies wrongdoing.
He said that at “this time in history, marked by so much uncertainty and instability, we need more diplomacy, not less,” and “we need the U.N. more than before.”
But Temer said it needs to change, particularly expanding the powerful Security Council to align it with the reality of the 21st century. Brazil is part of a group with Germany, India and Japan seeking permanent seats on the council.
MIXED REACTIONS
Trump’s speech drew varying reactions from leaders on the two sides of Trump’s black- and- white ledger. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally, wrote on Twitter, “In over 30 years in my experience with the UN, I never heard a bolder or more courageous speech.”
In his own address later, he said Trump had “rightly called the nuclear deal with Iran an embarrassment” and pointed to North Korea as an example.
“In the last few months, we’ve all seen how dangerous even a few nuclear weapons can be in the hands of a small rogue regime,” Netanyahu said. “Now imagine the danger of hundreds of nuclear weapons in the reins of a vast Iranian empire, with the missiles to deliver them anywhere on earth.”
Others called Trump’s speech excessively belligerent. “If Trump was determined to demonstrate to the world that he is unhinged and an imminent danger to world peace, he has succeeded with this speech, and will only make it harder for him to win over the world to his self-destructive goals,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based group that criticizes the Tehran government but advocates more engagement.
Neither Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, nor Mohammad Javad Zarif, its foreign minister, was in the hall for Trump’s speech.
Zarif wrote on Twitter that “Trump’s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times-not the 21st Century UN -unworthy of a reply.”
Trump’s choice of words raised hackles among allies, too, as Federica Mogherini, the European Union foreign minister, made clear at a reception Tuesday evening. “We never talk about destroying countries,” she said.
Domestically, reaction largely broke down along party lines: Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said Trump used the U.N. “as a stage to threaten war.” Onetime Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney tweeted that Trump “gave a strong and needed challenge” to the U.N.