Trump blasts UN as being filled with ‘empty words’ and not helping end wars

Standing in front of top UN officials, before more than 150 world leaders, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday blasted the international organisation.

He said they didn’t reach out to him on the various wars he says he has brought to a conclusion.

“I’ve always said the UN has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential,” Trump said.

“For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter. It’s empty words and empty words don’t solve wars.”

Trump wasted little time telling representatives of countries across the world that the US is “the hottest country anywhere in the world, and there is no other country even close.”

He added later that the US is “the best country on Earth to do business” and claimed the economy now is “bigger and even better” than during his first term, which he described as “the greatest ... in the history of the world.”

And he claimed the US is “respected again” like never before.

That kind of national bragging is generally frowned upon in diplomatic settings, including at the United Nations. Trump took the same approach in his remarks recently during a state visit to the United Kingdom.

At least twice in the opening minutes of his UN speech, Trump took swipes at his predecessor, former president Joe Biden.

It continues Trump’s tactic of bragging on the US performance compared both to the Democratic administration and the rest of the world. Trump has mostly used general superlatives rather than verifiable facts to make such claims.

It also stands out for a head of state speaking at the UN to inject their own domestic politics into the international discourse.

Trump opened his UN General Assembly address with a joke about the non-working teleprompter.

Trump said he didn’t mind speaking without a teleprompter because “that way, you speak more from the heart”.

He joked that whoever is running the teleprompter “is in big trouble”.