U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to the United Nations recently. The world took notice! But not in any way to enhance our country’s reputation.
He turned what was supposed to be a 15-minute speech into nearly an hour of “criticizing everything and everyone,” according to the Icelandic news website Visir. Trump’s disregard for UN protocol put him in the same category as Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, two tyrants who wielded the total power of his dreams – and aspirations.
Along with complaining about a faulty teleprompter [which the man following him to the podium disputed] and an escalator malfunction – typical Trump inanities – he claimed to have settled seven wars [oft-repudiated], called global warming [documented on a yearly basis] “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and told allies who are not abducting brown-skinned people off their streets, “Your countries are going to hell.”
He made quite an impression.
The Daily Mirror of London headlined its coverage, “DERANGED,” with a subhead describing Trump as “the world’s most powerful man-baby.”
France’s Liberation called his ramblings, “staggering, violent, incoherent.”
Spain’s El País said, “Trump’s aim is to blow up the rules of the international game,” as translated by the English edition of France 24.
German’s Die Zeit said what many over here have been saying for years: “Trump’s accusations are becoming crazier every minute.”
Xesco Reverter of Barcelona’s 3cat TV called our face to the world, “the elephant in the UN pottery. [“Bull in the china shop?”] Far from outlining a vision of how the world could cooperate to face common challenges, and presenting the U.S. as the power that wants to lead it, Trump dedicated himself to promoting his individual successes, belittled the UN and the multilateralism that gives it meaning, and hurled insults at both friends and enemies.”
And it would not be a Trump tirade without a shotgun approach to insulting others, including London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan and his city, calling Khan “a terrible, terrible mayor and [London’s] been changed. It’s been so changed.”
Trump’s outbursts are infamous for their untruths: “Now they want to go to Sharia law.”
Khan responded to the BBC:
“People are wondering what it is about this Muslim mayor who leads a liberal, multi-cultural, progressive and successful city, that means I appear to be living rent-free inside Donald Trump’s head.”
He added: “I think President Trump has shown he is racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic and he is Islamophobic.”
“When people say things, when people act in a certain way, when people behave in a certain way, you’ve got to believe them,” Khan said, before adding that he was “thankful we have record numbers of Americans coming to London.”
Reverter also pointed out Trump’s preference for autocracy over democracy.
“The most curious thing about Trump’s speech is that he devoted much of his jabs to attacking his theoretical European allies, rather than rivals such as China or Russia. For the president and his circle, the EU represents a liberal and progressive bloc that they find uncomfortable and associate with the values of the Democratic Party that they detest so much.”
The foreign press was not alone in its unfavorable view of the president. World leaders were critical as well.
Brazilian president Lula de Silva noted, “Today, the ideals that inspired the founders of the UN in San Francisco are threatened as never before in its history.”
He said, “Multilateralism is at a crossroads; we are witnessing the consolidation of an international disorder marked by concessions to power politics … Attacks on sovereignty, arbitrary sanctions and unilateral interventions are becoming the norm. There is a clear parallel between the crisis of multilateralism and the weakening of democracy.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, not mentioning Trump by name, observed there are “those who want to change the rules of the game, confident as they are in their dominance and more interested in dividing up the world than in finding the necessary compromises for the common good.”
He cautioned his colleagues, “The risk is that the law of the strongest and the selfishness of a few will prevail. We need, more than ever, to restore the spirit of cooperation that prevailed 80 years ago, because now we are dividing. And it must be said: divisions at the top of the world order, the fragmentation of the world, hinder the collective capacity to resolve major conflicts.”
Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had made the same assessment prior to Trump’s speech: “Global power is moving. You can debate how much or how far this will go from an American hegemony to a great power rivalry.
“While Trump’s America picks fights, Canada is building resilience to outlast them … We have values to which much of the world, not all of the world, still aspires. We’re a pluralistic society that works. Our cities are among the most diverse in the world. Our public square is loud, diverse and free.”
Trump works continually to make the U.S. public square a monolithic monotony of MAGA lies. He envisions himself as a Vladimir Putin or a Xi Jinping. But one consistently plays him as a fool and the other consistently outmaneuvers him. Heck, Benjamin Netanyahu and Kim Jon Un show the world his shortcomings.
“A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator,” Trump told reporters in August. His incompetence on the world stage should disqualify him from that conversation. But Trump’s ability at self-delusion knows no bounds. All of which should reinforce our vigilance to preserve our democratic republic.
