Trump vs United Nations: US President vows to Make the World Great Again and takes torch to globalist body

Donald Trump’s fiery speech to the United Nations was a vintage performance and as always, amid the outright lies and exaggerations, it contained undeniable statements of truth - especially when he laid into the UN itself.

He had the hall laughing when he ad-libbed his introduction after the teleprompter failed and complained about the escalator at the UN’s New York headquarters breaking.

“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator on the way up that stopped in the middle,” he bemoaned.

“If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would’ve fallen - but she’s in great shape.”

When Trump added: “We’re both in good shape,” that drew more laughs.

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations — a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter, thank you very much.”

The humorous critique served as a metaphor for his more valid criticisms of the multilateral organisation that, celebrating its 80th year, has never felt more remote and irrelevant when it came to its charter of resolving global challenges.

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” the President said.

“The UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it.

“It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.”

He claimed that the UN had not tried to help in his attempts to fix wars.

“It’s too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them and sadly in all cases the United Nations did not even try to help, in any of them,” he said.

“I never even received a phone call from the United Nations, offering to help.”

In a bilateral meeting with the UN’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Mr Trump said his country remained “100 per cent” behind the UN.

But this can hardly be taken as truth. Earlier, Mr Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further in an interview on Fox, saying it was the US alone that leaders turned to seeking help.

“They all come to the White House, they all want to speak to President Trump, they all want President Trump to fix it,” he said.

“So they can say whatever they want to say.

“The truth of the matter is that we have leaders – we have meetings going on today that we have leaders begging to be a part of it.

“They are calling and saying: ‘Can we be included? Can you bring us in? Can you get me five minutes to shake the President’s hand?’

“He is the indispensable leader in the world right now.

“He is the only one who has any chance of not just brokering a deal to end the war with Russia and Ukraine, but also bringing about an end to the war that’s going – and getting all the hostages released – in Gaza.

“And I think he has put more time and energy into peace proposals and peace initiatives than anybody else in the world, and he’s had the most success of anybody else in the world.”

Senator Rubio and Mr Trump are right, for now. The UN under Guterres is feckless and the United States does remain the undisputed leader of the world. China, the only possible rival for global leadership, has shown no interest in resolving conflicts in the Middle East and actively fuels Russia’s murder of tens of thousands of Ukrainians.

Thus, having both Russia and China sit on the United Nations Security Council as permanent member with veto votes has rendered the UN organ impotent.

It is admirable that Trump wants to end wars, even if his motives are more mercantile than moral. But this is why it is so difficult to tell if his latest shift on Ukraine, declaring that the country can regain all its territory, will last and lead to a meaningful policy change, or if its simply another bout of the President regurgitating the views of the last person who spoke to him - in this case, the European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But torching the UN is also by extension, trashing many allies who still believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that global cooperation is central to solving common challenges. This, along with his position on climate change, an existential issue for many countries in the non-aligned global south, including the contested Pacific, is akin to administering arsenic to the United States’ treasured bilateral relationships.

But Mr Trump’s crass and brash attacks carried a deeper message than a simple assertion of American dominance.

It was a rallying call to the populist far-right movements that are on the rise across Europe and a naked quest to take his Make America Great Again mantra global.

Insulting, funny, incoherent and rambling all at the same time, the President spared no prisoners as he spoke for three times longer than the allotted amount per leader, as he ventilated his core messages, laying into Europe and the UK and savaging their policies on migration and what he said was the “green scam.”

“It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders,” he said.

“You have to end it now. Your countries are going to hell.”

Mr Trump railed against climate mitigation efforts being made in the West while Russia and China were allowed to pollute for longer.

“Congratulations Europe, great job, you’ve cost yourself a lot of jobs, a lot of factories,” said Mr Trump.

He revealed that the had told UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ditch wind and solar power during his State visit last week.

“I want to see them do well, I want to stop them ruining their beautiful Scottish and English countryside with windmills and massive solar panels,” he said.

“We aren’t letting this happen in America.” He notably did not say this during his press conference at Chequers, even though he was given ample opportunities to do so by willing media.

Mr Trump used the global stage afforded to him at the United Nations General Assembly to attack London’s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is not shy in return about criticising the President.

But Mr Trump falsely claimed that Mr Khan was intent on imposing Sharia Law across London.

Even for Mr Trump, this was unedifying. Mr Khan is hardly a popular figure in London and the more devastating attack would have been to cast him as irrelevant and pretend to not know who he was.

But it was relevant to his objectives. MAGA, and the European populist movements are fusing evangelicalism and Christian nationalism with MAGAism.

Last week, a US-based GB News presenter asked Mr Trump to say whether he regarded Britain as a Christian country. Mr Trump declined to insult Sir Keir, an atheist, during their press conference, but regularly attacks Mr Khan, a prominent Muslim.

As Mr Trump’s UN outing went on, he didn’t even bother trying to hide his naked political interference when he gave his backing to right-wing Argentinian President Javier Milei.

“I’m doing something I don’t often do, I’m giving my full endorsement to him,” he said.

“The people of Argentina - we’re backing him 100 per cent.

“He, like us, inherited a mess and what he’s done to fix it is good … we need to make Argentina great again so it’s an honour for me to endorse.”

Europe can expect to see this next. Mr Trump set impossible metrics for European leaders to meet in order to satiate their impatient publics on migration and climate measures.

When they inevitably fail to meet them, the conditions will be ripe for him to urge Europeans and Britons to vote for his trans-Atlantic look-a-likes, such as the AfD in Germany and Reform in the UK.

Whether through inspiration or outright meddling, Make America Great Again is a movement Trump wants to expand into Making the West Great Again.