By Megan G. Oprea
Thursday, September 21, 2017
President Trump made his debut at the United Nations on
Tuesday, addressing the U.N. General Assembly at its annual opening. Afterward,
media headlines and news coverage of the speech focused on Trump’s absurd (but
admittedly amusing) new nickname for Kim Jong Un, “Rocket Man,” and his threat
that the United States is willing to “totally destroy” North Korea to protect
itself and its allies.
The mainstream media, liberal elites, and the
international community have been doing a lot of handwringing about Trump’s
rhetoric and his talk of going it alone. They also had a lot to say about his
comments concerning the Iran nuclear deal, whose dissolution the president has
long desired.
Although the focus was on Trump’s supposedly dangerous
isolationism and nationalism, what’s really upsetting them is that he dared to
say what no one is supposed to say: that the U.N. is broken and that it is
unrealistic and dangerous to have a world without borders and without national
sovereignty. In other words, Trump violated the Emperor Has No Clothes rule.
The Importance of
Governments Serving Their People
One of the major themes of Trump’s U.N. speech was
national sovereignty, both of the United States and of foreign countries: “Our
government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens, to serve their
needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their
values. As president of the United States, I will always put America first.
Just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always
put your countries first.”
Although the international community gives lip service to
the idea of national sovereignty and the U.N.’s role in defending it, this
concept fundamentally conflicts with the liberal belief that the world should
be progressing toward a kind of borderless global nationalism, in which no one
country can claim superiority over another. That’s the real reason Trump was so
roundly criticized for saying that he’s willing to go it alone on North Korea.
Trump also dared to praise America for its enduring
legacy as a free democracy. His speech was devoid of the kind of
America-bashing that President Obama was fond of, especially in front of
international audiences. Instead, Trump asserted that the United States should
“shine as an example for everyone to watch,” which indeed it should. He also
praised the 230th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution as the “foundation of
peace, prosperity, and freedom” for Americans and millions around the world who
have embraced it as a model of good government.
No doubt, this kind of talk disturbs the American Left
and international bureaucracies, both of which have grown comfortable with the
idea that American exceptionalism is a myth based on an ugly and misguided
sense of supremacy and pseudo-colonialism. This goes hand-in-hand with
“nationalism” becoming a dirty word that can only be interpreted as a form of
fascism. Thus it has become bigoted to desire defensible borders, whether here
in the United States or in Europe, and the idea of loving one’s country is now
a touchy and uncomfortable subject, something Trump specifically brought up at
the end of his speech.
The international community has believed in a sort of
fictional world since the end of World War II, in which national sovereignty
was to be ceded in exchange for peace on earth. Except no one really defined whose peace. Neither did they consider
that different countries have different ambitions, not to mention different
values that are sometimes irreconcilable. There can never be a utopic one-world
order because countries are made up of people, and people have ambition, vice,
and self-interest. The best that any world order can do is contain these
impulses; it can never eradicate them.
Since the U.N.’s founding in 1945, we’ve seen that China
and Russia, as permanent members on the U.N. Security Council, have repeatedly
and consistently vetoed efforts by the council to take action against rogue
members or intervene effectively in genocidal conflicts (like the Syrian civil
war). Everyone knows this, yet no one dares to say it for fear it will expose
the U.N. for the failure that it is.
In light of these problems, Trump stated that he would
work outside the U.N. if it became necessary, if the United States and its
allies continue to be threatened by North Korea and the body doesn’t do more to
prevent that. That makes sense. It’s absurd to defer to an international body
that, with the exception of the first Gulf War, has never resolved a foreign
conflict and is not now taking the necessary steps to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear
and ballistic missile programs.
Trump called out the rogue regimes represented at the
U.N. and “have hijacked the very systems that are supposed to advance them.” He
pointed specifically to the countries that sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council
that have terrible human rights records themselves, like Cuba and Saudi Arabia.
He also criticized the U.N. for delays and stagnation in resolving conflicts as
a result of “bureaucracy and process.”
Trump Also
Condoned International Cooperation
Although his speech promoted American values and
interests, and contained a healthy dose of criticism for the U.N., Trump’s
speech wasn’t a total rejection of the U.N. or the international community.
Trump called for member states to work together to help
protect the sovereignty of other nations, like Ukraine, and protect the
international shipping lanes in the South China Sea. He praised the mission of
the U.N., urging that we “must work together and confront together those who
threatens us with chaos, turmoil, and terror,” and calling for “all nations to
work together to isolate the Kim regime.” He said that although the United
States is ready to act unilaterally, he hoped that wouldn’t become necessary
because he held out hope that the U.N. would step up and function as it was
intended.
Rather than slamming the very existence of the U.N. or
threatening to leave (as he has done with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization), Trump praised the founding of the international body, calling it
a pillar of “peace, security, and prosperity.” He urged the U.N. to make a
collective effort to improve, in the hope that one day it would more
accountable and be able to effectively advocate for “human dignity and freedom
around the world.” That doesn’t sound like the words of an isolationist to me.
Trump’s message was not a black and white case of
promoting isolationism and denigrating internationalism. After all, he said
plainly, “As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests
above all else, but in fulfilling our obligations to our nations, we also
realize that it’s in everyone’s interests to seek the future where all nations
can be sovereign, prosperous, and secure.” He sees the need for both, or so it
seems.
Despite Trump’s efforts to make a generous nod to the
U.N., notwithstanding all the failings he pointed out, half the country (and
much of the world) only heard what it wanted to hear—the speech of a dangerous
isolationist who threatened to attack North Korea. That way, they don’t have to
talk about the real meat of the speech, which shined a spotlight on the
manifest and longstanding failures of the U.N.
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