As the second head of state to speak, following President Lula da Silva of Brazil, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a strictly imperial oration, inclusive of taking a full 40 minutes after the President of the UNGA had requested speeches be limited to fifteen. His message to the assembled nations’ delegates was pure empire: The United States is running the world, all parts of the world, and this is the best possible outcome for all the people in the world. Those nations who oppose American world rule, like Iran, will be “wiped out.”
President Trump included his now-familiar litany: America is back. “We have the hottest country anywhere in the world.” Our economy is second to none. Our military is the strongest, the envy of the world. More money is being invested in the United States now than in any country in world history. Zero illegal aliens have been admitted this year. The largest drop in violent crime ever recorded. “We inherited a dark age from the previous administration and have turned it into a golden age.”
Whether this all would translate into a campaign speech for his party in the midterm elections, in his much humbler role as President of the United States, was muddled by the fact that the five major TV networks have collectively decided to deny Trump any coverage, after he tried to ban one of them from the White House. But a campaign speech it was. “I am President of the most extraordinary nation in history. While others have talked, I have acted, to make America the most powerful nation in the world.”
Much of the speech, however, was a long denunciation of Iran, the nation outcast for resisting imperial war. The President insisted he was attacking Iran after trying to make economic offers to them, which they refused, and that he “will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Iran, he lectured the delegates, was actually doing the threatening: It threatened all nations with nuclear annihilation if they opposed its sponsorship of terrorism. Trump actually called upon the nations of the UN to join his war on Iran. “I have a decision to make,” he said. “Do I drive them into Hell, or do we make a deal,” which he predicted Iran would make, after the election. I’m not running. I give absolutely no credence to anything having to do with the election, while making my decisions about Iran.”
Perhaps the President’s most characteristic comment concerned his takeover of Venezuela, which he spoke about purely in the military terms of empire. He has now made “the biggest oil deal in history… To the victor belong the spoils, you’ve all heard that.”
Trump almost casually threatened Mexico, which “must reclaim control of its borders; it is the center of drug cartel activities.” He threatened to impose tariffs on any and all countries, to enforce no trade with Russia. And he ostentatiously claimed he “has the power” to rechristen artificial intelligence as “Super Intelligence, SI.”
