US President Donald Trump this week arrived at UN headquarters in New York City looking to rally the world against Iran and show that his policies on North Korea are lowering the risk of nuclear war.
By Wednesday, he made clear that he did not care whether he persuaded anyone.
“It doesn’t matter what world leaders think on Iran,” he said after absorbing criticism from the US’ allies up close. “Iran’s going to come back to me and make a deal.”
The comment was emblematic of Trump’s entire approach at a meeting that many world leaders use to help narrow divides, not widen them.
After doubling down on his “America First” approach, with its insistence on national sovereignty and rejection of globalism, he was to leave New York this week with allies and adversaries as frustrated as ever with the US over issues from trade to climate change to Iran’s nuclear program.
For a meeting of diplomats, there was little diplomacy to be seen on either side.
The pushback on Trump and his approach to foreign policy started during his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, when a murmur of laughter greeted the president’s claim that his administration had accomplished more than almost any in US history.
A day later at a UN Security Council meeting that he hosted, Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has longstanding anti-American sentiments, insulted the US to Trump’s face, saying that the US has no interest in upholding democracy.
More surprising was the chiding from allies.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said delivering for citizens at home “does not have to be at the expense of global cooperation.”
French President Emmanuel Macron disputed Trump’s claim that ties with France were “99 percent good,” saying that “the disagreements are known and they are more than 1 percent,” citing a divergence over issues including climate change and Iran.
“It’s never been like this before,” said Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Egypt and Israel under former US president George W. Bush who is now a professor at Princeton. “US policy always has engendered opposition from allies — Germany and France during the 2003 invasion of Iraq — but what’s new is the derision.”
With US-China trade tensions only getting worse, Trump suggested that his much-touted friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was coming to an end and accused Beijing of interfering in the upcoming US midterm elections.
Almost as glaring was the minidrama that unfurled at a luncheon for leaders on Tuesday, when cameras caught Trump ignoring Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s attempt to say hello. Trump then curtly shook his hand, but would not get up from his seat as he did for other leaders.
Trump on Wednesday evening at a freewheeling news conference said that he rejected Trudeau’s request for a one-on-one meeting, adding: “Canada has treated us very badly.”
Trudeau later said that he never sought a meeting.
“Lashing out at the Canadians in highly personal terms was diplomatic carnage,” said Richard Gowan, a senior fellow at the UN University Center for Policy Research.
Gowan called Trump’s news conference of more than an hour “a steaming hot mess.”
Trump and his team believe that they can afford to be dismissive. Iran’s economy has been pinched by US sanctions that he vows will only get tougher.
Trump said that his outreach to North Korea helped stave off a nuclear war that looked imminent when he came to office.
If Canada would not back down on dairy tariffs, Trump said he would tax cars imported from the country.
“The world loathes what Trump says, but they pay deep attention to the new credible threats of economic and military coercion,” said Charles Lipson, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago. “Trump sees the old international order as fundamentally unsustainable.”
As the week went on, domestic politics proved to be increasingly distracting, with stories about his embattled US Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh crowding Trump’s foreign policy agenda out of the headlines.
That led to some awkward moments, such as at the opening of Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when he accused Democrats of “bringing people out of the woods” to smear Kavanaugh, who was yesterday to confront allegations of sexual assault at a US Senate hearing.
“They can do that to anybody, they can to it to anybody,” Trump said as he sat next to Abe. “Other than perhaps Prime Minister Abe, because he’s so pure.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in