OPINION:
The abiding theme in the criticism of Donald Trump by his thoughtful critics is that the president has no gift for the subtle. That’s fair criticism. This president does not do subtle. They cite his speech earlier this month to the United Nations General Assembly, where he told the world’s freeloaders and troublemakers where to get off. The speech was vintage Trump of the kind that the world has to get used to.
What the president delivered was a call to the civilized world to re-evaluate the very idea of the nation-state, reminding the delegates that although he appreciates the prospects of the international body, it has not fulfilled its promise. That promise, was, as Harry S Truman said in an earlier time, the joining together of the world’s political institutions through their fulfillment of every nation’s sovereignty.
Lost in the noise — no president had ever been so blunt in a speech at the U.N. — was his assurance that “America first” included an invitation to other nations to assert their own national sovereignty. While promising that the United States would continue to support the U.N., and lend support to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ campaign to reform bloated and inefficient bureaucracy, he warned that sovereign nations could not pass their national obligations on to international organizations.
Mr. Trump laid out three major crises in international affairs that challenge all 193 members of the U.N. He employed none of the gassy diplomatic language many delegates no doubt expected in citing as crisis No. 1, the problem of a criminal regime in North Korea that is pushing the world toward disaster with its missiles and nuclear weapons. He spelled out the unsurpassed cruelty of the Pyongyang government to its own people. Nor did he let the Russians and the Chinese off the hook for their continued support of the regime.
His speech echoed the earlier warning by the American ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, that Kim Jong-un was pushing close to the end of American patience, and America, as always, reserves an overwhelming military response.
Mr. Trump made no excuses for his predecessor’s inability to effectively deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and leaving to him to manage a bad deal that merely postpones confronting the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions. He signaled that his administration would have to deal as well the Iranian export of terrorism through the Middle East.
In language no delegate could misunderstand, he observed how the Venezuelan regime had bankrupted a prosperous nation and substituted a ruinous socialist regime. U.S. oil refineries have been fitted to import Venezuela’s particularly heavy crude, more than 270 million barrels worth about $10 billion in 2016 alone, and whether to close those imports and further cripple the Maduro regime was a question still on the docket at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mr. Trump went out of his way to renew American support for Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a frequent target of delegates from countries that do not bother to hide their hatred of Jews. The new emphasis on American friendship with Israel stands in sharp contrast with Barack Obama’s seeming indifference to Israeli peril.
By implication Mr. Trump’s remarks were a welcome indication that there will be no more American support for a Palestinian movement that refuses to accept the existence of a Jewish state and continues to sponsor terrorism, assassination and fear.
The president’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly was a call for a fresh interpretation of a wholesome American nationalism, one based on the sovereignty by which nations set themselves apart, just as he urged other nations to assert their sovereignty as well. The speech continues to reverberate through the corridors of the U.N., and good for that.
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