(The Center Square) – Peace through strength was the central theme of President Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, with the president underscoring American dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Before the address, the White House released a fact sheet highlighting the Trump administration’s slashing of more than $1 billion in UN funding, with $570 million from the “regular budget slashed,” and $549 million from peacekeeping efforts that the administration argues support “endless missions.” The U.S. is the largest funder of both programs, providing about 22% of the UN's $3.5 billion regular budget and about 26% of its $5.3 billion peacekeeping budget.
The Trump administration also touts massive “bureaucratic posts cut,” citing nearly 3,000 posts at headquarters and 1,000 in peacekeeping. It also highlights 25% “fewer troops and police.”
Trump began his speech by touting American exceptionalism, citing the 250th anniversary of the United States, proclaiming that “America is back, and our country is stronger today than ever before.”
Trump called the U.S. the “envy of the world,” adding that the military is “the most powerful on earth.”
The president highlighted a secure border, a crackdown on crime, energy dominance, historic lows in poverty rates, record military spending, and $21 trillion in “new investments” in the U.S.
Trump told the assembly that he has acted to confront global threats.
“While others have talked, I have acted. While others have spoken of peace, I have made it. While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them. While others have talked of courage, America has shown it. While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world,” the president told the assembly.
Trump made his case for the strikes on Iran, claiming the regime “slaughtered” more than 72,000 of its own citizens.
The president received applause from the assembly after affirming his pledge that he will “never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
With Iranian officials in attendance at the general assembly, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Trump told the group that he has a “big decision to make.”
“Will a deal be made with Iran?...Or, do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly?” Trump asked. “Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness for generations?”
The president again urged the Islamic Republic to make a deal, believing the U.S. “will make a deal right after the election, because it doesn’t make sense for them not to.”
Trump commended the general assembly for “overwhelmingly” passing a resolution “condemning Iran’s despicable terrorist attacks on commercial shipping.”
The president also touched on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, coming hours before Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump then shifted focus to American dominance in the Western Hemisphere, highlighting the capture and arrest of Venezuela’s former dictator, Nicolas Maduro.
“The United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States,” said the president. “The cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere. They are enemies at war with civilization—using murder, rape, torture, and extortion as instruments of terror.”
Trump warned against Cuba’s decades-long support of communist networks in the U.S., accusing the Communist nation of cultivating “ties to subversive and radical groups such as the Communist Party USA, Antifa, and" the Democrat Socialists of America.
While touting U.S. exceptionalism and dominance, the president delivered sharp criticisms of the assembly, underscoring that a portion of the body is turning a blind eye to global persecution even as it encourages globalization.
The president strongly objected to a push for globalization, calling for an end to the “far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats” and his administration’s efforts to “intervene to stop an obscure UN body, the International Maritime Organization, from secretly establishing a first-ever global carbon” tax that he argues would have raised global shipping cost by 10-20%, “and maybe more.”
“There is no global government, and while I am president, there will be NO GLOBAL TAXES,” Trump emphasized to the assembly.
He also underscored that the U.S. is strongly opposed to what he characterized as an “out-of-control” International Criminal Court, calling it a “rogue institution” and asking “all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign.”
He went on to criticize the controversial UN Human Rights Council for its lack of support for the global persecution of Christians. He accused the council of ignoring the persecution and “crimes of the world’s most repressive regimes.”
Trump called the council “hypocrites” for ignoring the persecution of Christians, while demanding that the U.S. should open its borders to “gangs and criminals from the worlds’ most dangerous places.”
“There is no human right to illegal immigration, but there is a right to remain a sovereign nation,” the president underscored.
He concluded his address by calling all nations to be “united against the enemies of all humanity.”
“If we reject the voices who would have us give in to fear and doubt, if we refuse to shrink from our duties to our people, then together through bold action, we will make this world far safer and a far better place. We will leave our nations stronger,” Trump told the assembly.
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