Trump tirade at UN spares none, including UN; blasts immigration and green energy

TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday identified immigration and the “green energy scam” as major threats to the west in an all-out, unvarnished attack against almost the entire world at the United Nations.


In a nearly hour-long screed, Trump did not spare the UN itself, accusing it of funding an assault on western countries and their borders, ostensibly because of its work with refugees and asylum seekers. The UN is supposed “ to stop invasions, not create them, and not finance them,” Trump said in a remarkable broadside into which he also brought in a personal angle, relating how he once offered to renovate the UN HQ for $ 500 million, was rejected, and it (according to him) eventually spent $ 2 to $ 4 billion on the project.




Few countries and regions were spared in a Trump tongue-lashing in which the world is destroying itself with open borders and green energy and only the United States is emerging as the greatest country on earth with him at the helm, after four ruinous years under his predecessor. Bragging incessantly about his record, the US President claimed a commitment of more than $ 17 trillion in investment by foreign entities in the past seven months to usher in the “golden age of America” under him.




But it was his remarkable tirade against immigration, even migration of people due for reasons ranging from economic opportunity to humanitarian crises that has been the hallmark of human civilisation, that was striking in a UN General Assembly that brings together leaders and delegates from 193 member states.




“ Proud nations must be allowed to protect their communities and prevent their societies from being overwhelmed by people they've never seen before with different customs, religions, different everything,” Trump, who is himself a scion of German immigrants, said in a stunning rebuke of Europe, specifically identifying Switzerland, Greece, and U.K as countries being overwhelmed by immigrants.




“Your countries are going to hell!” he thundered at the European leaders and delegates.




“Each country is unique. Every sovereign country should be able to control their own borders,” Trump said while referring specifically to London and its “terrible mayor” (British-Pakistani Sadiq Khan). “Now they want to go to Sharia law. This cannot be sustained,” he added.





After replaying his “greatest hits” including claims of having stopped seven wars, Trump also implicitly acknowledged criticism from New Delhi that the west is showing double standards by accusing India of funding Moscow’s war on Ukraine by buying Russian oil. He scoffed at Europe for “funding the war against themselves” by not stopping energy purchases from Russia, while not mentioning that the US itself buys nuclear fuel from Moscow, which according to media reports, he was unaware of till he was told about it recently.




Trump said the US is fully prepared to impose “very tough” sanctions on Moscow but Europe has to first cease energy purchases from Russia, and he would soon be discussing this matter with European leaders.




The US President also continued his diatribe against green and renewable energy while calling global warming and climate change a “hoax” that was designed to diminish the economic heft of the west. “Carbon footprint…is a con job. If you don’t get away from the green scam your country is going to be ruined,” he told European nations, while congratulating Germany for moving away from renewable energy and reverting to fossil fuels, including what he described as “big beautiful coal.”




Typical of his mercurial style, Trump also related how he ran into Brazilian President Lula in the UN hallway, embraced him, and had a 20-second conversation with him and would be meeting him again next week – before unloading on Brazil for actions that merited steep 50 per cent tariffs.