The US President used an hourlong UN speech to hit out at allies, immigration and climate policies
NEW YORK – “Your countries are going to hell,” warned Donald Trump in an almost hour-long speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
As the US President sees it, immigration is “destroying” the world and is leading to 300,000 children being trafficked and abused. He also said that renewable energy doesn’t work and climate change is the “greatest con job perpetrated on the world”.
The apocalyptic vision – soaked in half-truths and exaggerations – was meant to be a warning to the assembled delegates in New York to fall in line behind American leadership. Instead, it showed in stark detail how Trump’s second administration is embracing the strongman’s view of the world.
In the past, assembled dignitaries may have been able to brush off Trump’s comments as an aberration, but his lecture suggested he stood before them as the face of a changing world order. The only laughter in the room was nervous as Trump ran through his grievances, some petty, some personal and others political.
Trump joked that the person who operated the teleprompter, which wasn’t working, was in “big trouble”. He also said that an escalator inside the building had stopped working while he and First Lady Melania Trump were on it, and that if they were not in such “good shape” it would have been a problem.
Trump, a former real estate developer, even found time to mock the UN for failing to hire him to renovate its headquarters, saying he would have used marble for the walls instead of terrazzo, which he called a “far inferior product”.
It’s no secret that Trump thinks he deserves a Nobel Prize, and this speech could, in part, be seen as a brazen pitch for one. He claimed to have ended seven wars, including the India-Pakistan conflict, a claim India has strongly denied.
Trump also said the war in Ukraine was “not making Russia look good”, before turning his ire on Europe for buying oil from Moscow. “They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia,” he said. “It’s embarrassing to them.”
Trump criticised the UK, Canada and Australia who, along with 100 other countries, have recognised Palestinian statehood. He called it a “reward” for Hamas.
When immigration came up, Trump ditched his notes completely to speak, as he put it, more “from the heart”.
That’s when he accused the UN of being responsible for mass migration, claiming it had given “debit cards to illegal aliens”.
“The UN is supposed to stop invasions and not create them, and not finance them,” Trump told the assembled delegates. “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. I’m really good at this stuff: your countries are going to hell,” he added.
In his speech, Trump blamed the “globalist migration agenda” for what he claimed had led to 300,000 children being trafficked into the United States, many of whom he said had been raped and abused.
Then he got to green energy, long a source of frustration for the President. “Renewables: they’re a joke, they don’t work,” he said. “The wind doesn’t blow. The big windmills are so pathetic… they start to rust and rot.”
Trump called renewable energy the “greatest con job perpetrated on the world” and told Sir Keir Starmer not to “ruin the beautiful English countryside with massive solar panels that go seven miles by seven miles”.
Speakers are traditionally given 15 minutes to speak at the General Assembly. Trump’s speech one of the longest from a leader on record. It also set a worrying tone.
One notable bright spot was Trump saying he had agreed to meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula.
The two men have clashed publicly, with Trump criticising Brazil’s approach to free speech and its decision to put Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, on trial for trying to overturn his country’s 2022 election.
Even before Bolsonaro was jailed for 27 years this month – a split screen moment for Trump who has dodged his own criminal cases along similar lines – Trump slapped 50 per cent tariffs on Brazil.
Now Trump said he looked forward to meeting with Lula. “I liked him,” Trump said. “And I only do business with people I like. When I don’t like ‘em, I don’t like ‘em.”
It was the kind of comment that left delegates sitting awkwardly in their seats.
