- 3 months ago
At the United Nations General Assembly, US President Donald Trump took aim at the core of the post-World War II global order. He questioned the very purpose of the United Nations, asking, "what is the purpose of the United Nations?"
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Let's raise some big questions from that contentious, controversial speech of Donald Trump
00:05where he's taken on the United Nations, once again targeted India in his speech.
00:10Is Donald Trump ending or is he actually prolonging conflicts?
00:15Is Donald Trump someone whom India should now simply call out, enough is enough?
00:20Is Donald Trump looking to bypass United Nations and all the institutions set up post-World War II?
00:26And what is this Trumpian world order really about?
00:31Is Donald Trump disruptive, dangerous or imaginative?
00:35Joining me now is Javed Ashraf, former Indian ambassador to several countries, one of India's most distinguished diplomats.
00:42I'm joined by Bill Drexel, fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
00:46Casey Singh is also joining us, former Indian diplomat.
00:49And Daniel Block, senior editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, also is with us.
00:54I'll also be joined by Craig Kafoor, our director of public opinion, foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
01:01I want to come to each of you first.
01:02Let's start with you, Javed Ashraf.
01:04Your first takeaway from what you heard from Donald Trump.
01:07Do you believe that this is someone now who is determined to redraw the world order in his own image,
01:14put himself at the center of the world order?
01:16Well, Rajdeep, first of all, I think it was a 55-minute speech, which seemed more like addressed to a Republican audience,
01:24not simply to a UN General Assembly.
01:27And at many parts, he was winging his way through it.
01:30There were some extirpo diversions in his speeches, the language that he was using.
01:35I mean, who the hell, et cetera, is not something which is written into his text.
01:39And so it's 55 minutes of that.
01:42A lot of those themes he has already covered in his speeches in 2017, 2018, 2019.
01:482020 was virtual.
01:50It is, in a sense, amplification and a very stark amplification of some of the broad themes.
01:57His disdain for the UN system, multilateral order.
02:00He has, in the past, already spoken about the trading system.
02:03Today, he's completely trashed this green transition.
02:08I mean, in language that is perhaps unprecedented, about calling carbon footprint a big hoax,
02:14a climate change a big con job, et cetera, immigration as the greatest problem in the world.
02:22But also, in a way, he has run down the United Nations, basically saying they're of no use to us.
02:28They then called me.
02:30He, in fact, also referred to the time he wanted to renovate the UN.
02:33But a lot of that speech was, by the way, also about his predecessor, which is quite remarkable when you think of this.
02:41And as far as India is concerned, there is nothing new that he has said today.
02:48He did refer again to the two things that has been talking about, the cessation of conflict between India and Pakistan,
02:54and India and China being the primary funders of Russian war because of the oil purchases,
03:00called for stronger sanctions, wanting the EU and European countries to join in that process.
03:06We've heard that before.
03:08But I think this is really something not about reshaping the global order,
03:14but in a sense, the United States, under President Trump, vacating that global order.
03:22We seem to assume that just because it is the largest and the most powerful country in the world,
03:27whatever it does is going to be the principal determinant of the global order.
03:32There will be a lot of reordering that will take place, hedging, bandwagoning,
03:39different kinds of alliances, different kinds of equations getting formed,
03:44new accommodations, new adjustments, new countries coming up to take leadership.
03:49And it isn't just about the multilateral system of the UN.
03:53Multilateralism isn't just about the UN.
03:55It's also about the process, about a way of doing things.
03:58That is, you don't do things unilaterally.
04:00You take an initiative and work with others.
04:03And that is the fundamental difference between India and China.
04:06China's BRI is a unilateral initiative imposed on others.
04:09Everything India has done thematically is essentially a multilateral initiative,
04:14whether it is International Solar Alliance or whether it is the CDRI and similar initiatives,
04:21one sun, one grid, except one world.
04:24So what I'm saying is that the world will still find a way to work together.
04:30It is the U.S. influence in the world, which will diminish, notwithstanding the bravado that you hear.
04:37Because the very instruments of U.S. engagement and influence in the world,
04:42which is trade, let me complete this, trade, investment, the soft power, technology, aid,
04:50the guarantees and commitments, the soft power, the setting up of norms and standards,
04:56the convening power to get people behind an idea which has been the genius for the United States
05:02since the end of the Second World War.
05:04All of those instruments are being either dismantled or, in a sense, diluted,
05:10which in the long run is going to definitely diminish the U.S. power
05:14and perhaps create what we really believe has been the natural state of the world for centuries,
05:20which is a multipolar world of multiple systems working together, sometimes collaborating, sometimes in conflict.
05:27But, yes, if that multipolar world is not underpinned by the discipline of some kind of multilateralism,
05:34with or without the United States, then it's going to be a fairly chaotic and turbulent world.
05:44Let me stop you there because you've raised several important points.
05:47Daniel Block, you've just heard Javed Ashraf suggesting that what we are actually seeing is Trump bravado,
05:53that the United States, far from leading the world,
05:58is actually perhaps disrupting the world at its own cost.
06:02Do you believe that Donald Trump understands that at all?
06:06I mean, you come to the United Nations General Assembly and you berate every country in the world.
06:11This will only further, some believe, make America weaker in the long run rather than stronger.
06:16Do you agree with that?
06:17I certainly don't think that Trump is doing the United States any favors in his rhetoric or in his policies.
06:27I mean, a 55-minute long speech going well beyond any of his remarks before to the United Nations
06:33and going well beyond his allotted time, I think is really emblematic of this in many ways, right?
06:38You have a president who's rambling and jumping from issue to issue.
06:42There's no coherent vision. There's no coherent, really, principles at work in what he's saying.
06:47It's mostly a list of personal grievances and personal hobby horses that he's going on and on about.
06:54Is it disruptive? I'd say yes. By definition, it's disruptive.
06:58It's disruptive to the literal working order of the United Nations on that day
07:02because he's speaking for way longer than he's supposed to.
07:05And it's disruptive to the series of alliances and partnerships and various institutions that the United States helped set up,
07:12including the United Nations.
07:14To what extent is Trump aware of this?
07:17It's hard to say.
07:18I think anybody who's tried to get into Trump's mind or had before has run into difficulty.
07:23And that's because I honestly don't think there's really any organizing principle
07:28or coherent theory of the world behind what Trump is doing.
07:32I don't think he has such an operative principle.
07:35I think he just kind of jumps from whatever issue he cares about.
07:38To the extent there's something he really fundamentally cares about, it's tariffs.
07:41He's long said that tariffs are something he loves.
07:44Tariffs, he says, are his favorite word in the English dictionary.
07:47So beyond that, I think it's just a sense of kind of personal aggrandizement and personal vendettas.
07:54And at the end of the day, yes, that does undermine the United States' strategic interests.
08:02You know, Casey Singh, personal aggrandizement.
08:06Trump is only about Donald Trump.
08:08We know that now for a long time.
08:10But to come to the United Nations and claim that I am the one who's ended all these wars,
08:14including suggesting that he ended India versus Pakistan.
08:19How should India respond?
08:22Should we be now?
08:23There must come a time, surely, where we must say enough is enough?
08:27Or do you just listen to what Donald Trump says and believe that this is background noise?
08:32I think India has concluded that nobody in the world is taking it seriously.
08:37You know, and when he follows it up with saying, I'm the one who deserves the Nobel Prize,
08:43you can see that it's kind of a non-serious claim that no one takes seriously at all.
08:48He's going back 30 years.
08:50What war has he settled?
08:50Even if you take India-Pakistan, government of India is saying Operation Sindhu is still on.
08:56There's nothing settled.
08:58So if anything, it's a ceasefire of sorts.
09:02He doesn't understand that.
09:03And now I think what is important is not to go into those details, two or three things.
09:08He suddenly started talking about the Brazilian president.
09:12You know, conventionally, Brazil is the first country to speak at the UNGA.
09:15And the U.S. is the second country.
09:19So as the Brazilian president was going out, Trump was coming in.
09:23And all of a sudden, in the middle of the speech, he starts talking about his meeting the Brazilian president
09:30and the chemistry being very good.
09:32Now, you know, that is what sums up Trump.
09:35It's got nothing to do with principles, detailed diplomacy.
09:38He suddenly met him and in 15, 30 seconds, he's come to the conclusion that his chemistry is very good.
09:46And then he goes on in front of the whole world and says, that is what matters with me.
09:50You know, if I get along with somebody, I just...
09:53So it's a highly personalized diplomacy, which he demonstrated right in front of the whole world.
09:59And secondly, when he talks of Gaza, he talks of ending the Gaza war, but he doesn't talk of the attack on Qatar.
10:07He doesn't talk of the repercussions of that attack, which is undoing U.S. alliances in that region,
10:14which has got the Pakistanis going into an alliance with Saudi Arabia, even threatening to...
10:20Not threatening, even saying that they would be sharing their nuclear defense with them and maybe even the weapons.
10:26None of that is of any interest to Trump, that by backing Israel and Netanyahu,
10:32who's getting progressively isolated in the world.
10:35And look at this, he was in England just a week ago.
10:38And the British Prime Minister, when asked at that point, will you recognize Palestine?
10:43Just ignore the question.
10:45But they all, two days later, they recognize Palestine,
10:48which is sending a signal that what Netanyahu is doing is wrong.
10:52But Trump doesn't want to talk about it.
10:54He only wants to blame Hamas.
10:56But Hamas is not Palestine.
10:58There is the West Bank, which Israel is forcibly trying to occupy and segregate now from the rest.
11:04Hamas is only one part of it.
11:06Nobody who supports Palestine is saying that the Hamas should be forming the government.
11:10They're saying that Hamas should have nothing to do with it.
11:13But he doesn't want to go into all that, doesn't want to accept that he's wrongly backing Netanyahu.
11:18And he has to pull the lever on that.
11:22And without that, this current attack is not going to stop.
11:25I'm going to stop you for a moment because I think I get the gist.
11:30He is completely ignoring the details, particularly when it comes to Israel,
11:38particularly when it comes to issues where he finds himself on the back foot.
11:43He seems to believe that he alone is the center of the universe.
11:46But is there, Bill Drexel, a method in his madness?
11:50Is there something which you would say?
11:52Is there a clear method that Donald Trump has as to what is his end objective?
11:57Is there any end objective or is it day to day?
12:00I wake up from the right side of the bed and I'm OK.
12:03I wake up from the wrong side of the bed.
12:05I rant against the world.
12:06Yeah, I think it's a good question.
12:09I think we can separate out two things here.
12:11I think in this case, he was airing a lot of grievances and a lot of his general feelings, thoughts, impulses.
12:20In general, it was a bit of a rambly speech.
12:23So I'm not sure that we can take away too much in terms of a strategic communication there.
12:29I think a lot of it was just kind of off the cuff.
12:31That said, I think one of the issues here when you're dealing with President Trump is basically he doesn't communicate in the way that most U.S. presidents typically have or really most heads of states do.
12:46One metaphor I've heard that I think is pretty on point is basically that he's like a bat.
12:53When he starts to speak, it's not so much that he's trying to communicate a policy or trying really even to communicate information.
13:00It's just as much the case that he's kind of putting out a signal and he's going to see what bounces back in what way.
13:09And so that's why I think a lot of times, you know, we hear these there are these kind of slogans, take Trump seriously, but not literally.
13:16All these things are kind of pointing to this fact that he's not the way that he talks, the way that he communicates is not the way that most politicians talk or communicate.
13:27He is he's putting out signals and he's trying to see how people respond.
13:30And a good example of this, I think, that hasn't been mentioned is that he this he's continuing a trend.
13:37And I think it's it's more than we've seen before of calling out European partners vis-a-vis Russia.
13:44This you know, he's he's started to kind of indicate this, but this is a very public dressing down of allies, European allies for not taking a hard enough line on Russia.
13:55We'll see how I think he's he's saying it mostly to see what their response is and how they're going to come back.
14:00Interestingly, though, while he took on some of his allies, he wasn't particularly strong on China.
14:10Craig Kafura, do you believe that this is Donald Trump who seems to find it easier to take on his allies than those who are really the one country which is probably a rival for leadership in the global race today?
14:25He was he wasn't as trenchant on China as he was on his own European NATO allies.
14:33Well, the thing about U.S. allies is that when Trump beats up on them, they don't push back quite as much.
14:38But when he beats up on China, China pushes back quite hard.
14:41And China has the leverage over the U.S. in some critical areas to really hurt U.S. interests and U.S. businesses.
14:47I think that is one of the very few coherent principles of Trump from the first term and through into the second term.
14:53Right. There are not a lot of things that Trump holds dear as sort of core principles, the tariffs and then a real disdain for U.S. allies and a respect for strength.
15:03And those seem to be the things that tie together a lot of very different and very incoherent policies that come out of sort of Trump administrations.
15:12But I also think it's worth noting that it's not just that this was a weird speech.
15:16This was an unusually domestically focused speech and sort of a rambling one.
15:20The Trump administration also does internal policymaking differently than other administrations have done in the past.
15:27There's less coordination between agencies.
15:30There are more decisions that seem to be taken that are not really aligned with a single strategy, whether that's with U.S. interrelations.
15:37You know, the H-1B changes will definitely impact the U.S. interrelationship, but I really doubt that anyone thought about that before announcing those changes.
15:46We've seen that with the raids in Georgia on the Hyundai plant, right?
15:49That's going to have a huge impact on the U.S.-South Korea relationship.
15:52I really doubt anybody put that through an interagency process first.
15:56So there's just there's a lot more chaos.
15:58There's a lot more noise.
15:59It's a lot harder to figure out what the U.S. actual position is on some of these issues.
16:04On some of these really big strategic issues until you can get Trump in a room and then who knows what Trump's going to say.
16:15Javed Ashraf, I just want you to hear what Donald Trump said about the United Nations itself, because many believe that this speech was rambling.
16:23It was an attack on different countries, but also on the very basis of the United Nations and what it stands for.
16:31Just listen in and I want you to respond to what Donald Trump said about the United Nations.
16:37I didn't think of it at the time because I was too busy working to save millions of lives.
16:43That is the saving and stopping of these wars.
16:47But later I realized that the United Nations wasn't there for us.
16:51They weren't there.
16:52I thought of it really after the fact, not during, not during these negotiations, which were not easy.
16:58That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations?
17:03The U.N. has such tremendous potential.
17:06I've always said it.
17:07It has such tremendous, tremendous potential.
17:11But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential.
17:15For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter
17:21and then never follow that letter up.
17:24It's empty words and empty words don't solve war.
17:29The only thing that solves war and wars is action.
17:32What is the purpose of the United Nations, Javed Ashraf, is what Donald Trump wants to ask.
17:40It's a question that many are asking.
17:42Unable to stop the war in Gaza, unable to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine,
17:48Donald Trump is hitting the United Nations where it hurts.
17:50Well, I think this has been the case for a very long time.
17:55He's just put it across very bluntly.
17:58The incapacity, the inability of the United Nations to solve some of the most pressing problems
18:03of the world, of governance, security, of politics, of development, of finance, of trade.
18:10All these issues we are seeing, the United Nations finds itself unable to deal with.
18:16But I should also point out that the United States is actually one of the biggest causes
18:21for the paralysis of the United Nations also.
18:25And the reason for this is that it, like other five members, can exercise a veto.
18:30You've seen how disdainful and how contemptuous it has been of international court of justice,
18:37how it has very often not ratified international treaties.
18:43So there is a sense that the United Nations must serve the U.S. purpose.
18:48Otherwise, it is of no use.
18:50And today, when you don't allow, you know, Muhammad Abbas to travel to New York,
18:58the very sanctity of the location of the United Nations in New York was that it was inviolable
19:05that people, all sovereign countries, would have the freedom to have their leaders travel
19:10for the UNG or for any other meeting.
19:13But that, again, has been violated.
19:15I would say something even deeper.
19:16For the United States, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis,
19:22it has been turning gradually away from international institutions and multilateralism,
19:30all those institutions that it actually helped create or it was the architect of in the post-World War II era.
19:39And it is because it no longer finds those institutions either useful or helpful to the American interest
19:47because there have been now gradual diffusion and shift in global power,
19:52which has, in a sense, acted as a countervailing power on the U.S. power.
19:57Now, U.S. now is beginning to see, and particularly President Trump,
20:02multilateralism, multilateral institutions, not as framework of global governance,
20:09but as fetters on U.S. power or the exercise of U.S. power,
20:14which they now believe is best done bilaterally in dealing with and in recognizing
20:21or in utilizing the asymmetry of power that the United States can exercise in a bilateral context.
20:28And therefore, in so many other domains also, as you've just heard,
20:33that it has been actually hardest on some of its closest allies in Asia and Europe,
20:39people who were its partners in building those institutions, upholding those institutions.
20:45So in a sense, you are seeing, I would say, President Trump not simply as an aberration,
20:51but as an acceleration or, in fact, even a culmination of deeper shifts that are taking place in the U.S.
21:00thinking about globalism, which he has also referred to, about international institutions
21:06and what use those are for the United States.
21:09It's interesting you're saying that because, Daniel Block, Donald Trump claimed this is a golden age for America.
21:20So at one level, you have receding American power, unable to get to end the war in Ukraine,
21:26unable to end the war in Gaza, and yet Donald Trump seems to live in this belief that he ends the wars,
21:33that the United Nations remains the most powerful country in the world.
21:38Is he deluded?
21:41Or is he unwilling to accept this new multipolar world order,
21:45where there are shifting alliances and new axes emerging even outside the United States?
21:52I mean, I think there's still some truth to the idea that the United States is the most powerful country in the world.
22:00It still has the world's largest economy.
22:03It still probably has the world's most powerful military by a fairly comfortable margin.
22:08We're not in 1999 anymore where the United States can really kind of do whatever it wants without any pushback.
22:15So the era of total unipolarity, as we might call it, is gone.
22:19But I don't think he's wrong to sense that the United States still stands a level above other countries
22:26in terms of its raw ability to project power.
22:29I think that his lack of credibility in terms of his initiatives,
22:34his refusal to play by or abide by various institutions that have traditionally benefited the United States,
22:41is reducing American power.
22:44I think his worldview in some ways, to the extent, again, that he has a worldview,
22:48I really want to be clear that I think there's an enormous amount of incoherence in what he's saying,
22:53and incoherence in his behavior, is it's not even bilateralism.
22:58It's unilateralism.
22:59That because the United States still has the world's largest economy,
23:02because it still has the world's most powerful military,
23:05it should be able to do whatever it wants.
23:07It should be able to get whatever it wants in the world.
23:10That's obviously not true.
23:11That's not how it works.
23:12And so he's perennially running up against the frustration to the fact that things are not working out the way he wants them to.
23:19That, in fact, the United States, even if it is a level above other states, does need partnerships.
23:24It does need to work with institutions.
23:26It does need to work with other countries to get what it wants.
23:29And the constant tension of these two forces, the fact that he views the United States in one way,
23:36and in a way, like I said, that that's partially true,
23:38but he can't get what he thinks he deserves from that, is constantly causing him irritation.
23:43It's constantly causing him frustration.
23:45And we're seeing that in some ways in the list of grievances he's laying out before the UN.
23:49But we've seen Casey saying that the United States was successful, for example, in targeting Iran and sending out a firm message.
24:03On the other hand, we've seen the United States allow Netanyahu to do what he wants, it appears, in the Middle East.
24:11We've seen them relatively helpless in stopping of Vladimir Putin from continuing to target Ukraine.
24:18Are we seeing in these moments, in this rambling speech, another example of declining U.S. power,
24:24despite the fact that it's the strongest economy, the strongest military,
24:27there is a sense of a declining U.S. power out there.
24:31And how, therefore, should India respond?
24:34I come back to it.
24:35How should India, therefore, deal with the United States?
24:39Raideep, I think we need to understand the context.
24:42This is not the first time U.S. is approaching the UN negatively.
24:48All through the 80s, they had a problem with it.
24:50As long as the Soviet Union was there, the Soviet veto would stop them, stymie them.
24:55So they used to find U.S. – in fact, there was talk of U.S. getting pushed out of – U.N. getting pushed out of New York.
25:01Then they started cutting the budget.
25:03They started exerting all kinds of pressure.
25:04But post-91, after the Soviet Union collapsed, they virtually controlled the U.N.
25:11Because there was no one there to impose – the Chinese had not started asserting themselves.
25:17And the Soviets were gone.
25:19So the U.N. became their plaything.
25:21And then came 9-11.
25:22And the Americans used and shifted the agenda of the Security Council to counterterrorism.
25:29So they used the Security Council to forward their agenda on – you know, look at the way they got the approval for the attack on Iraq.
25:38They gave all kinds of fake information there.
25:41And based on that, they got a resolution from the U.N. to justify an attack on Iraq where no weapons of mass destruction were found.
25:48So that was a period where U.N. was being exploited by U.S.
25:53Now we are back to a position where a war is being fought by one of the P5 members.
25:59If one of the P5 members, Russia, is fighting a war, there's no way the U.N. can play a role.
26:05As it couldn't play whenever U.S. is directly involved.
26:08So that is a flaw in the U.N. itself.
26:10The P5, if their interests are directly involved, then the U.N. becomes dysfunctional because they will veto it.
26:17They will not allow anything to happen there.
26:19Now, as far as India is concerned, I think, you know, all that –
26:22But look at – no, no, but look at Gaza.
26:26No, no, but Mr. Casey is saying – and let me bring in Mr. Drexel at this point.
26:31Look at Gaza.
26:32Clear violations of international law are going on on a daily basis, Mr. Drexel.
26:37And Donald Trump's thrown his hands up.
26:39He says, give me the hostages back, and then we will talk peace.
26:45Now, the world is recognizing Palestine.
26:47U.S. chooses not to do so.
26:50How should we see that there is no morality left in this world order?
26:54This is an amoral world order.
26:55Well, look, I think the Palestine issue has a very long history in the U.N. that's quite unique.
27:06And the U.S.-Israel relationship also has a very unique relationship.
27:10It's hard to use that particularly as a bellwether for the strength of the U.N.
27:15I think this recognition of a Palestinian state, it's hard to know even what it means or what it's going to do.
27:21You know, it's largely symbolic.
27:23It airs some feelings, but it doesn't actually change any facts on the ground.
27:29But I do think we – I mean, at the end of the day, the U.N. has been fading towards irrelevance.
27:35It's become – it's an ailing system.
27:39I say this as a person who formerly worked at the U.N., and it's deeply flawed, including by the fact that India is not on the Security Council.
27:49So I think that, you know, there's been welling up a lot of discontent with the U.N., not just in the United States, but certainly especially on the right in the United States.
28:02And that's what's being manifest here.
28:05I think we've got a sense from all these fine voices as to why Donald Trump, in a sense, has upended this world order
28:18and thereby created a situation of constant disruption, which is why he's probably at the moment the figure who we track virtually every night at the top of the news.
28:30But to all my guests, I appreciate you joining me for your valuable analysis of what Donald Trump said or didn't say in that speech.
Be the first to comment