In the opening act of Hamlet, scene 4, Shakespeare’s most famous character critiques his stepfather, King Claudius, for “heavy-headed revel” that was leaving Denmark “traduced and taxed of other nations.” President Donald Trump did likewise to the United Nations in his long speech before that body on September 23.
Trump’s humorous barbs at the inoperative escalator and teleprompter got much of the attention, but his overall address was full of trenchant observations and policy suggestions, seasoned with his signature braggadocio. He covered nine broad topics, no doubt infuriating many of the foreign leaders and ambassadors present with his opinions. Overall, he put the world officially on notice that it’s no longer globalist business as usual for the world’s most powerful nation, which still funds one-quarter of the UN’s budget. Press coverage ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous..
Trump’s Intro: Ending Wars
But let’s look at the content of his 55-minute oration, not primarily the style. The president spent quite a bit of time (seven pages of the printed transcript) in a rather rambling introduction seemingly initially aimed at a domestic audience. Therein he extolled his empowering of the stock market, new investment, tax cuts, and reducing illegal immigration. He then pivoted to his new international trade deals and, most importantly, claimed that “in a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars”: Cambodia-Thailand, Kosovo-Serbia, Congo-Rwanda, Pakistan-India, Israel-Iran, Egypt-Ethiopia and Armenia-Azerbaijan.
While those conflicts weren’t all exactly wars, and in some of them the Trump administration negotiated ceasefires, not full-blown peace deals, the fact remains that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio can take credit for advancing peace in five of them (minus Egypt-Ethiopia and Kosovo-Serbia). And they did so without any help at all from the peace-loving UN, as the president pointedly observed. He went on to blast that organization for “not even coming close to living up to [its] potential,” since “all they seem to do is spout empty words, and empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war is action.”
Nuclear Weapons and Iran
Trump noted that “there is no more serious danger to our planet today than the most powerful and destructive weapons ever devised by man.” He went on to excoriate Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and vowed that “the world’s number one sponsor of terror” can never obtain them. He said he had sent “the so-called supreme leader” (Ayatollah Khameini) a letter offering US cooperation in return for Tehran’s ceasing the nuclear program—but was turned down. He then reminded the audience that the US then bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, something “no other country on earth could have done.”
Don’t Reward Hamas
He also refused to jump on the Anglosphere + France bandwagon recognizing “Palestine” as a state, seeing this as a “reward” for Hamas’s atrocities on and since October 7, 2023. However, he also stated that “we have to stop the war in Gaza immediately.”
Russia-Ukraine War
Trump lamented his inability to stop the horribly bloody war Russia is waging on Ukraine. He repeated his contention that “this war would never have started if I were president.” He then lambasted China, India, and Europe for helping Russia by buying its oil. And he warned Moscow that if it’s “not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of tariffs which would stop the bloodshed” (although how much leverage the US has in this regard is debatable).
End Bioweapons Research
Fourth, Trump invoked the COVID pandemic to call “on every nation to join us in ending the development of biological weapons.” To that end, the US will redouble efforts to enforce the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention.
Uncontrolled Transnational Migration
Fifth, he dissected at fervent length “uncontrolled migration.” He accused the UN of “funding an assault on Western countries” by sending, paying, feeding, sheltering, and transporting over 600,000 illegal migrants into the US.
“The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them, and not finance them,” he said. He then contrasted the US, which under his administration has stopped illegal immigration and taken control of its borders, with Europe, which has been “invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen.” He pointed out that half of prison inmates in Germany, Austria, and Greece and over 70% in Switzerland are foreign nationals or migrants.
“When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum-seekers who … repaid kindness with crime, it’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders,” he said. Then, in a prediction, not a curse, Trump told Europeans “your countries are going to hell.” The “globalist migration agenda,” which includes the trafficking of children, whether intentionally or otherwise, is “done.”
Drug Cartels
On a related but separate issue, Trump briefly explained why he ordered “multiple savage drug cartels,” such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, to be listed as “foreign terrorist organizations.” They smuggle poisonous drugs into the US that kill our citizens, so he ordered the military to blow up drug transport boasts, especially Venezuelan ones. And he called out Nicolas Maduro, that country’s dictator, by name.
Energy and “Climate Change”
The president denounced the false hope of “renewable” energy, such as giant windmills, and blasted China for building and selling but not using, them. He mocked the outrageous, false claims of “climate change” alarmists, noting correctly that the same purveyors of “global warming” had in previous decades panicked about “global cooling.” Trump quite rightly called this “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and its attendant so-called solution “the green energy scam.”
“The primary effect of these brutal green energy policies has not been to help the environment but to redistribute manufacturing and industrial activity from developed countries that follow the insane rules … to polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune.”
And then he channeled Hamlet, saying, “The fact is, the United States has been taken advantage of by the world for many, many years.” But “not any longer.” While “we want trade and robust commerce with all nations … it must also be fair and reciprocal” and “that’s why the United States is now applying tariffs to other countries … much as these tariffs were, for many years, applied to us.”
Finally, Trump trumpeted nationalism as a valuable patrimony of all, not just Americans. As the US will turn 250 years old next year, he called on all nations to follow our lead and “defend free speech and free expression” as well as “protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today … called Christianity.”
Extending an olive branch to the assembled dignitaries, many of whom had bristled at his bluntness, the president said “every leader in this beautiful hall today represents a rich culture, a noble history, and a proud heritage that makes each nation majestic and unique.”
“We stand on the shoulders of the leaders and legends, generals and giants, heroes and titans who won and built our beloved nations,” he said. “You’re a part of all of that.” (One might question the historical veracity of that last statement, but not its graciousness.)
In an ending sure to further infuriate the UN hierarchy (and press), he ended with a final appeal to nationalism: “our ancestors gave everything for homelands they defended … now the righteous task of protecting the nations that they built belongs to each and every one of us.”
The UN, like Hamlet’s Denmark, has something rotten in it. Trump exposed that as no US president ever has. Most pointedly, he rebuked the globalist ideology and called on the nations of the world to proudly and peacefully embrace their own nationalisms. The internationalists are terrified of that spectre, just as Hamlet and his companions were of his father’s ghost. But it turns out the phantasm of patriotism is alive and well, and President Donald J. Trump is both heeding and promulgating its call — not just for Americans, but for all peoples.
Timothy Furnish has a PhD from Ohio State in Islamic, World & African history. He’s been an Arabic interrogator in the 101st Airborne, a US Special Operations Command analyst, an author and professor. Furnish is the military/security affairs writer for The Stream.
