American diplomats prepare for Donald Trump’s annual trip to UN general assembly the way emergency services get ready for a hurricane. They imagine the worst and then make a plan to deal with it.
Compared to UNGA, the rest of Trump’s existence is carefully controlled – a tight circuit from the White House and the golf course and back again, enlivened by occasional rallies of the faithful. The general assembly is a vast hall full of national leaders, most with very different views but an equal right to speak.
On the first day of set-piece speeches, the risks of unwanted encounters can at least be mitigated. Trump arrived late, avoiding any awkward encounters, walked straight out to the green marble podium and delivered what turned to be a variant of his campaigning speech.
But instead of yelling acclaim when Trump claimed to have “accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country”, the great wedge-shaped atrium of the general assembly murmured before dissolving into giggles.
Trump was taken aback. “I didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK,” he said. A video clip of the moment raced around the world on Twitter and Facebook, forcing Trump’s aides into desperate improvisation. Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the UN claimed Trump’s fellow leaders couldn’t help but laugh out loud because “they loved how honest he is”
Trump would later claim the world was laughing with him, not at him. “We had fun,” he told journalists.
If the general assembly appearance was perilous, the president’s decision to chair a session of the security council was even more fraught with risk. The US mission had never intended for it to happen. Their British colleagues had asked for a council session on weapons of mass destruction, that would allow Theresa May to talk about the Russian nerve agent attack in Salisbury.
The US tentatively agreed and scheduled the meeting for Wednesday with vice president Mike Pence in the chair. But when Trump got word that Pence would be presiding, he insisted he himself would be be in charge, and the subject would be Iran.
The US mission pointed out to his White House aides that if the council session was to be about Iran, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, would have to be invited and allowed to speak. The whole idea could backfire. With a few days to go, the White House agreed to revert to the original topic.
So when ten o’clock on Wednesday came, leaders from the council’s member states were gathered around the chamber’s giant C-shaped table, mingling as if at an exceptionally anxious cocktail party, with no alcohol but with a high political price to being caught alone with no one to talk to. Minute by painful minute went by with no sign of the chairman. Trump was in a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and it was running late
Twenty minutes after the starting time, Trump swept in and called the meeting to order, calling on himself to speak first.
He delivered the denunciation of Iran he had originally planned, along with a rejection of the nuclear deal the US and its allies agreed to with Tehran in 2015. But then he dropped an additional bombshell, claiming China was planning to subvert the upcoming congressional elections in November. He provided no proof or details, simply moving on to another subject.
Then it was the turn of Trump’s counterparts to speak. The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi vigorously rejected Trump’s accusation. None of the other 13 leaders even mentioned. And none supported Trump’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal. Almost all vigorously defended it. One, Evo Morales of Bolivia, used his time at the microphone to deliver a blistering attack on the Trump administration and its policies, with a blunt severity that Trump has not encountered since taking office.
“The United States could not care less about human rights or justice,” the former union boss said. “I would like to say to you, frankly and openly here, that in no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy”.
The notoriously thin-skinned Trump look across the table at Morales impassively, leading some in the observation booths to speculate the translation audio feed to his ear-piece had been cut off to avert an international incident.
A diplomat who was sitting behind the president insisted that was not the case. The president had heard the harangue in full, but had maintained a disciplined cool.
“He had decided what the headline was going to be, about China. If he had got into a row, that would have been news,” the diplomat said. “By staying quiet, he won.”