Sep 20, 2017

How the world reacted to Trump's UN speech

President Donald Trump speaks to the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017, in New York. Photo: Evan Vucci / AP

The WashPost lead headline calls it "defiant." The N.Y. Times and L.A. Times both go with "combative." The Financial Times calls it a "tirade."

President Trump's maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly reflected the dichotomy we have seen throughout this presidency: hot, even juvenile rhetoric, cloaking substance that's very much within the 40 yard lines of traditional Republican foreign policy.

The world reacts:

  • Max Boot, CFR senior fellow: President Harry Truman, who addressed the U.N. founding conference in 1945, "would have been appalled to see a U.S. president threatening war and praising national sovereignty as the greatest good."
  • "Reshaping U.S. Role With One Word" — N.Y. Times front-page analysis by Mark Landler: "Trump, in declaring ... that sovereignty should be the guiding principle of affairs between nations, sketched out a radically different vision of the world order than his forebears, who founded the United Nations after World War II to deal collectively with problems they believed would transcend borders."
  • How Asia sees Trump ... Lead du jour, from AP's Foster Klug in Seoul, South Koreal: "Was it a bluff? A warning that Washington would shoot down North Korea's next missile test? A restatement of past policy? Or simply just what it seemed: a straightforward threat of annihilation from the president of the United States?"
  • "Officials and pundits across Asia struggled Wednesday to parse Donald Trump's vow Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly to 'totally destroy North Korea' if provoked."
  • The other end of the telescope: "Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told The Associated Press in an interview ... that he heard positive news in President Donald Trump's United Nations address: 'that the U.S. would not impose its way of life on others.'"
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