The world watched Trump rave at the UN. What it learned is no laughing matter

6 hours ago 2

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It is beyond ironic that Donald Trump names so many of his clubs "Trump International," because he never seems more out of place than when forced to address global matters. His very small world comes across as laughable, but it matters.

Whatever it is that fires up the Trump mystique among the MAGA movement, capturing the support of 40 percent of Americans at any given moment, it certainly doesn't travel. He is never found more wanting than when addressing global matters. The most recent humiliation actually occurred here at home — his home, New York City, but in front of the world at the United Nations.

Standing at the same podium on which Khrushchev banged his shoe, Castro held court for four hours, and JFK aspired to "explore the stars," Trump announced to an attentive world that while he was personally "really good at predicting things," immigration was causing their countries to go to hell. Nice.

It would be almost impossible for him to sound older. While there is room to discuss ways a country keeps its original culture in an evolving world, or the mechanisms for orderly immigration, the very idea that nations can isolate in a connected globe is both mystifying and unwanted. Given that Trump was primarily directing his immigration animosity toward Europe, he's essentially telling them to stay "white" or descend into Satan's flames. Nice.

Were that his only problem.

Not only did Trump float out his ugliest of ideas, the "great replacement theory,” but he also went fact-free in addressing one of the most sophisticated audiences he'll ever entertain, and did so when addressing the topic about which that audience was most interested — trade. He claimed that in his second term so far, the United States has "secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion," a statement so laughable as to bring a drink to the nose, given that America's entire GDP last year was $29 trillion.

The laughable lie is akin to telling a domestic audience that drug prices will go down 1,500 percent. If Trump could be believed, Walgreens will now pay us $52.25 to pick up the Klonopin needed to survive this post-fact world. And yet there he is, this time speaking to international leaders, laying out another statistical impossibility. Nice.

Did he whine? Of course, he did. Trump complained that no one has given him any credit for ending wars around the world — he seems stuck on seven, though no one can name them, and then noted that "everyone says I should get a Nobel Peace Prize." He did not say, "After all, they gave a Nobel to the Black president," but he may as well have. This column is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for Literature than this unserious man winning a prize for peace. But he whined anyway. Nice.

Now, do not doubt for a second that despots around the world do tell Trump such stupid stuff and will laud him in private over his powerful UN oratory. No question, when he hears from leaders in the Middle East, Latin America, China, or other authoritarian strongholds, he is showered with praise, told that the United States is "strong again," and most certainly, he deserves that white whale, the damn Nobel.

It is just that easy for other dictators to pick our pockets while filling his with flattery. Nice. To him, at least.

This is all just so awful on so many levels. American foreign policy over the decades, while fallible to a fault, was better than nearly any alternative, largely a force for good. And while that is nice, it also benefited Americans in more ways than we can count. From military bases in the Far East and Europe, to wall-sized televisions for $500, attracting the smartest people on Earth, and cutting-edge tech, Americans benefited tremendously from being "the good guys," the enlightened ones, science-centered, fiscally powerful, with a sensible long-term outlook. No more.

We look as stupid as he sounds.

Many might say, "Well, it's still just a speech and can't matter in the long run," but they're wrong. It does matter. Because the audience extends beyond the delegates. Imagine CEOs in Germany, Korea, or India, power players considering a major infrastructure move in the United States. Big business craves stability. Foreseeability. Reliability. They hear this crazed American and his policy and see only liability.

Banks, too. Entire economies ride the back of the 30-year mortgage, the bet that the next three decades will look "similar enough" to the last three that banks will extend loans, providing the American dream — home ownership. But again, as Wall Street looks on in wonder, muttering "WTAF," moguls here and around the world consider gripping their money tighter, putting our economy in peril, making everything more expensive.

Kind of funny. If the U.S. actually took in $17 trillion "every few months," the federal government could probably buy everyone a house. And that would be nice.

But that won't happen because it's not a serious number, nor based on a serious trade policy. It matters because trade is what underlies the UN's greatest purpose, peace throughout the globe. It is hard to go to war with the country that makes your phone. Simply put, we cannot afford to wage war with China. Global trade is essential to peace and prosperity, but do you suppose that any world leader sitting in that audience believes that he or she can enter into a beneficial, solid trade agreement with the United States?

No, and now your car just got more expensive and the world more unstable. Not nice.

But it certainly is expected when the president of the United States, once considered the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on Earth, takes to the podium whining, lying, and sounding like a petulant man-child, or exactly what happened this week. Skip the horror movie this Halloween and instead watch a side-by-side comparison of a typical Barack Obama UN speech next to that. Then think about the next 30 years.

For the last 30 years, the world has been pretty good to the United States, and the United States has been good to much of the world. Our military owned the seas and the skies, our crops had intercontinental buyers, our stuff was fairly cheap, oil flowed too freely, and economic progress was essentially baked in. Nice.

No longer.

Standing at the same podium from which Ronald Reagan brought along the Soviets, Nelson Mandela fought apartheid, and Pope Francis argued for drastic action on climate change, current American president Donald Trump talked about hats that said he's right about everything, then repeated, "And I don't say that in a braggadocious way, but it's true. I've been right about everything."

Just what the world ordered. The know-nothing playing the know-it-all all. Nice.

Because it is not just a speech. It is a direction, one that encompasses 340 million citizens, a powerful military, backed by a powerful GDP, and against that juggernaut, it is hard for the world not to sit back and think, "That's the wrong direction," and then work around us. Perhaps Americans remain largely unaware of the UN and our global prosperity because of it, in part because we've never had to live without it.

But with speeches like that, laying out a direction as such, we — along with the CEOs, banks, and farmers — may have to now factor in such a world. Unfortunately, it may only hit us when the television is $1,400, a mortgage far out of reach, and our mighty military is fighting at home and alongside despots. Is there any other takeaway from such a speech?

Alas, "Trump International" is now laughable. Sadly, it is more than just another speech and actually does matter. Eventually, the laughter turns to tears. Nice.