On September 25, U.S. President Donald Trump made a speech to the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In his 37-minute speech, he reiterated his philosophy of "America First," and without any surprise, he criticized globalism and urged nations to focus on their own national sovereignty. To decode his speech, experts joined CGTN's The Heat to provide some insightful views on it.
Einar Tangen, a political and economic affairs commentator, said President Trump's speech at the United Nations was a "scripted red-meat commentary," which was a double down, considering the domestic crisis of impeachment inquiry and the global issues that he's facing and the global issues.
Tangen says Trump hit his points during the speech on globalism, national sovereignty and the notion of "America First," speaking to domestic audiences instead of offering solutions in a global setting. Regarding Trump's harsh statement of China during the speech, Tangen says it wasn't unexpected from Beijing's point of view. "What is needed by the world is to come together and Donald Trump wants to pull it further apart," Tangen said.
Amy Holmes, a political commentator and columnist for the Swiss weekly "Die Weltwoche," echoed Tangen's point, saying there's nothing surprising in Trump's speech because they were the themes and the doctrine that he campaigned on in 2016.
However, Holmes said she doesn't believe that Trump's foreign policy is in conflict with multilateral action because there's always conflict when two countries try to pursue the same interest. In addition, Amy said she doesn't think Trump's speech was mainly delivered to domestic audiences. Instead, she argued the issues that Trump addressed in the speech were destined for both U.S. and international audiences.
Jeff Stacey, a national security consultant and the former U.S. State Department official during the Obama administration said it's ironic that Trump delivered a speech highlighting his isolated world view at an assembly that is based on an international body.
Stacey said Trump is descending in the global scheme of things and not ascending. The impeachment inquiry that announced by the Opposition Democrat House of Representative Nancy Pelosi is leading the White House to an interesting direction, and President Trump is pretty much in trouble. "He (Trump) was the ultimate cat among the pigeons today, except the pigeons are actually getting along well, and they're no longer afraid of the cat," said Stacey.
When it comes to Trump's foreign policies towards some particular countries, Arash Azizi, a senior journalist for the Independent Persian, said Trump doesn't have a multilateral approach, especially in the case of Iran. In his speech, there are signs that he does want to make deals with the leadership of Iran and North Korea （the DPRK）as opposed to trying to sort of bring in the regime.
Azizi said he thinks Trump is energized by the kind of intervention he has had on world affairs, while right-wing conservatism or anti-socialism is a big part of it.
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