No one expected President Trump to go gently when he addressed the United Nations general assembly for the first time since returning to the White House. In his first term, Trump earned a reputation for bringing a sense of theatre to the event — from calling North Korea’s leader “rocket man” to pushing against globalism.
Some of his criticism on Tuesday in Manhattan was expected — from backing Israel and going against the UN consensus to criticising President Putin over the ongoing Ukraine war. But the bit that surprised delegates most? The amount of time Trump spent berating the Europeans.
In a 52-minute address (it was meant to be 15), Trump spoke in depth about his concerns for the UK and wider Europe. He warned of the “double-tailed monster of energy and immigration”, declaring at one point: “Your countries are going to hell.” He went into detail on what exactly different countries were doing wrong — the UK on energy (time to drill — as he said he had told Sir Keir Starmer every day of the state visit) and Germany over its prison population (he said 50 per cent of inmates were foreign nationals or migrants), concluding that migrants “repay kindness with crime”.
Trump took aim at the UK in one of his most coherent critiques of the nation and beyond, focusing on immigration and energy. He said that climate change was the “greatest con job ever perpetrated”, a “scam”, and said “carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions”.
