An America First president addresses the United Nations

By D.S.O.R. | NEW YORK

THIS has been a good summer, cinematically, for the United Nations. That world body is the unlikely co-star of “Wolf Warriors 2”, a hyper-patriotic action film that has broken all box-office records in China, earning nearly $900m to date with its depiction of a former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commando battling African rebels and evil American mercenaries to rescue Chinese citizens from a war-torn African country. To the usual action-flick staples—car chases, fist-fights, crashing helicopters—the Chinese-made movie adds a fortifying dose of international law. Lantern-jawed Chinese military officers wait for the UN Security Council to approve their use of force, after asserting a legal right to self-defence. The final scenes show the hero delivering his compatriots to a base guarded by PLA peacekeepers in UN blue helmets (earlier, a Chinese-American doctor has tried summoning marines from an American consulate but hears only an answering-machine, for the yanks have run away). A Chinese passport fills the screen as the closing credits roll, with a message that citizens of the People’s Republic will be protected wherever they are on earth.

This is a very Chinese view of the UN’s role. The film offers no opinions about the African rulers and warlords causing such mayhem, let alone the human rights of locals. “Wolf Warriors 2” is about China looking after its own. The UN is there to offer legal sanction for that display of sovereign power.

On September 19th President Donald Trump used his first address to the UN General Assembly to outline a position not so far from that of the Wolf Warriors. Mr Trump told his audience that he will always put America’s interests first. But then he outlined how his brand of chin-jutting nationalism need not preclude the forming of useful coalitions, as strong, responsible and proudly sovereign countries work together to isolate rogue regimes like North Korea or Iran, in the name of self-defence.

Mr Trump made headlines with a string of bellicose, Tweet-ready warnings not to mess with America. Notably, he declared the North Korean regime a “band of criminals” that imperils the world with its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and branded the country’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, a “Rocket Man” bent on a “suicide mission.” Should America be forced to defend itself or its allies, he added: “we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

The president also poured scorn on the deal brokered by his predecessor, Barack Obama, with other world powers to freeze Iran’s nuclear weapons programme in exchange for easing international sanctions. The world had to confront the “murderous” regime in Iran, Mr Trump said, condemning Iranian support for terror groups abroad, and political repression at home. The nuclear deal was an “embarrassment to the United States”, and the world had not “heard the last of it”, he thundered.

Mr Trump offered a long hymn of praise to the benefits of populist nationalism, or patriotism as he preferred to call it. Just as he had come to office promising to remember the “forgotten” factory workers and middle classes of America, he now urged other countries to build their own strong economies, societies and families, and not wait for far-off global bureaucracies to save them. “We are calling for a great reawakening of nations,” he said.

Echoing countries such as China or Russia, with their talk of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign nations, Mr Trump said that America does not expect “diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions or even systems of government”. Instead he praised the work of “responsible” countries that fight terrorism or other security menaces, recalling fruitful talks with more than 50 Arab and Muslim governments brought together by Saudi Arabia.

Look behind the headlines, however, and there were reasons for many leaders and ambassadors in the hall to sigh with relief. In 2016 Candidate Trump called the UN a corrupt, useless club for globalist elites that did not deserve to be bankrolled by hard-working Americans. In September 2017 President Trump noted that the UN costs a lot, but thanked its leadership for embarking on cost-saving reforms, and added that if the body helped to bring about world peace, “this investment would easily be well worth it.” Look still more closely at his words, and Mr Trump did not promise to tear up the Iran deal. Indeed he did not even declare Iran in contravention of the deal’s nuclear weapons curbs, instead launching a broader assault on the Islamic Republic’s mischief-making in the region, and poor human rights at home.

Yet this was still a dismaying, disconcerting speech to hear from an American president. For the “Wolf Warriors” view of the UN’s role is a distinctly partial one, focused on those bits of the organisation’s charter that stress the sovereignty of each member. But at the same time the UN charter calls on members to heed and promote universal human rights and values. The tension between national sovereignty and universal rights has thrummed through the UN’s work like an electric charge ever since the organisation was founded after the second world war.

Mr Trump, in his speech to the General Assembly, did not so much resolve that tension as pretend that it does not exist. This required some heroic squinting at the historical record, as when the president described the founding of the UN as a great bet on “the independent strength of its members”, born out of a “great victory” by patriotic French, British, Polish and other warriors against “evil” in the second world war. Mr Trump cited his predecessor, Harry Truman, who he said had hailed the Marshall Plan of aid for Europe and American membership of the UN as twin pillars of the “noble idea that the whole world is safer when nations are strong, independent and free.”

In fact the post-war American strategy was a bet on promoting closer integration in war-ravaged Europe. That war was seen as a tragic defeat for humanity, as well as a victory for the allies. Mr Trump did not quote a section of Truman’s special message to Congress on the Marshall Plan, delivered in December 1947, explicitly defending American aid as buttressing the decision by 16 European countries to “break away from the self-defeating actions of narrow nationalism.”

This misreading of history matters. For to be clear, even the more constructive Mr Trump on show at the General Assembly marks a break with decades of post-war American policy. Perhaps he sincerely believes that the lesson of 1945 is that nationalism is a force for peace, because it is the only form of social compact that makes citizens feel heeded and protected by their rulers. Perhaps he does not really care very much about history, and is mostly interested in the domestic political forces that propelled him to improbable victory in 2016. America First populism spoke to unhappy voters and won Mr Trump the White House. And because that election victory is Mr Trump’s proudest achievement, he may be inclined to believe that the world would be a generally better place if other leaders follow his lead.

Alas, even that is ascribing too much coherence to the worldview outlined by Mr Trump at the UN. Where it suited him, he sounded like a traditional Republican president, as when he scolded the Iranians for locking up political opponents or censoring the internet. At one point Mr Trump rebuked the leftist regime in Venezuela, calling it an example of the misery and failure that socialism always brings, and promising “further action” if the government there headed further down the path to authoritarian rule. There was scattered applause, possibly because those in the room had heard his warm words for Saudi Arabia, and had heard no criticisms at all for the strongmen that Mr Trump admires in such countries as Russia, Egypt or the Philippines.

One of the oddest passages in Mr Trump’s speech attempted to synthesise nationalism with respect for universal values. As he moved from a call to slap sanctions on Venezuela to a reminder that his government distrusts multilateral trade pacts, he offered the following credo. “America stands with every person living under a brutal regime,” he declared, ringingly. “Our respect for sovereignty is also a call for action. All people deserve a government that cares for their safety, their interests and their wellbeing, including their prosperity.” How does that resolve tensions between sovereignty and universal values? Who, under Mr Trump’s doctrine, gets to decide whether governments are brutal, or giving their people the lives that they deserve? His speech left that unclear. In essence Mr Trump described a world order in which the good battle the bad out of patriotic self-interest, with all other details left blank. That works better as the plot of an action film than as a national security strategy.