(AFP) – US President Donald Trump will denounce “globalist institutions” in his first United Nations address since returning to the White House. He will also meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky against a backdrop of mounting tension with Russia. Trump will speak from the UN General Assembly rostrum for the first time since his political comeback as he tears down decades of US participation in international organizations.
Opening the annual summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that aid cuts led by the United States were “wreaking havoc” in the world. “What kind of world will we choose? A world of raw power — or a world of laws?” Guterres asked. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Trump would be touting the “renewal of American strength around the world” and will describe “how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order.”
Trump’s second term has opened with a blaze of nationalist policies curbing cooperation with the rest of the world. He has moved to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization and the UN climate body, severely curtailed US development assistance, and wielded sanctions against foreign judges over rulings he sees as violating sovereignty.
Trump will meet Zelensky for the second time since he sat down in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15, a summit that broke Moscow’s isolation in the West but yielded no breakthrough on Ukraine. Despite Trump’s insistence that he can broker a quick end to the war, Russia has continued its barrage of attacks on Ukraine in the past month and has rattled nerves with drone or air incursions in NATO members Poland, Estonia, and Romania. Trump said last week that Putin had “really let me down.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a television interview Tuesday, mentioned that Trump was still considering imposing sanctions on Russia but also wanted Europe to take action by buying less oil. “We’re the only ones that can talk to Ukraine and Russia, and everyone’s encouraged us to play that role,” Rubio told NBC News. “At some point that role might end. As you can see, the President’s already repeatedly expressed his deep disappointment at the direction that Putin is taking this, even after Alaska,” he added.
A UN report released Tuesday found that Russian authorities have tortured civilian detainees in Ukrainian areas occupied by Moscow, including sexual violence, in a “widespread and systematic manner.” Zelensky will need to tread carefully with Trump, who—along with Vice President JD Vance—berated the wartime leader in an explosive February 28 meeting at the White House, calling him ungrateful for billions of dollars in US military assistance.
The annual UN gathering goes on all week, but Trump, who first made his name in New York real estate, is spending barely a day in the city. One of Trump’s few other one-on-one meetings will be with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, an ideological ally to whose government the United States is considering offering an economic lifeline.
Ahead of his visit to the UN district, now swarming with heavily armed police and agents and crisscrossed with barricades and road closures, the US Secret Service announced they had disrupted a “telecommunications-related” plot. The Secret Service reported that they “dismantled a network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior US government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations.” The statement indicated that “nation-state threat actors” were involved.
Trump’s appearance comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron led a group of Western allies in recognizing a Palestinian state, a historic but largely symbolic step strongly opposed by Israel. The United States and Israel both shunned the special session.
– Shaun TANDON
© 2024 AFP
