Trump Takes World Stage, Delivers Same Nonsense

President Donald Trump on Tuesday regaled leaders from around the world with his false claims about ending eight wars, boasts about murdering people on small boats on the high seas, and fabricated numbers about foreign investment in the United States, using his United Nations forum to repeat the lies and complaints he inflicts on American audiences on a near-daily basis.

“We’ve secured commitments for $21 trillion in new investments from all over the planet, compared to less than $1 trillion in four years in the previous administration,” he said, using figures that have no connection to reality.

Having damaged the world economy with his war of choice against Iran and its resultant high oil prices, Trump yet again threatened to destroy the country entirely, an act that would constitute war crimes.

“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world, or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?” he said to silence in the General Assembly hall. “Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

Trump even openly touted his imperialist claims on Venezuelan oil following his incursion into that country to kidnap its dictator and replace him with one more to his liking: “To the victor belong the spoils.”

As is typically the case with Trump’s statements, it was unclear which should be accepted on face value and which ignored entirely. Not long after threatening Iran’s annihilation, Trump said his team had just finished a three-hour meeting with an Iranian delegation, right there in New York City.

“Very good meeting,” he said, adding that he expects Iran will want to make a peace deal. “I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to. It’s greatness, potential greatness, or obliteration.”

Trump’s 37-minute speech was more than twice as long as the U.N. secretary-general had asked leaders to keep their remarks. Much of it resembled the typical speech at a White House event or one of his political rallies. He attacked former President Joe Biden, repeated his lie that climate change is not happening, falsely claimed that investigations into his acceptance of Russian assistance to win in 2016 and his extortion of Ukraine in 2019 were “hoaxes,” and minimized the dangers presented by unchecked development of artificial intelligence.

“These are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster. Same group of people,” he said. “This is the group that came up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, the Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine hoax, climate change, open borders.”

Trump delivered a similar lie- and grievance-packed address a year ago, his first U.N. address since returning to office. That hourlong speech was also largely indistinguishable from one of his rally speeches.

In addition to his speech Tuesday, Trump has several meetings with world leaders during his trip to New York City. He met Monday evening with French President Emmanuel Macron at his Trump Tower building in Manhattan and late Tuesday morning with the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark.

There, following a year and a half of bullying and threatening military action if Denmark didn’t hand over its territory to the U.S., Trump took credit for a “new” security agreement, even though the terms were specifically permitted under an existing 1951 treaty.

“This was long in the making, you know. You could go back many, many decades, probably centuries, but you go back way back in the line of presidents, and almost every president at least mentioned it. But most of them just mentioned it. Some really wanted to make a deal and never got done. But we’re getting it done,” Trump said, inventing a nonexistent backstory about the history of U.S. interest in the near-Arctic island.

Trump is to return to Washington, D.C., later Tuesday to prepare for a state visit by China’s autocratic leader, Xi Jinping, from Wednesday through Friday. Trump has long admired Xi’s iron grip on the country’s population and is planning a lavish display to honor him.