US President Donald Trump meets President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission during the United Nations General Assembly. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times
United States President Donald Trump spent the better part of an hour on Wednesday scolding the United Nations General Assembly, saying the UN was useless and that other countries were “going to hell”.
But in a post-speech meeting with Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, Trump struck a radically different, even conciliatory, tone.
“Our country is behind the UN 100%,” Trump said. “And I think the potential of the UN is incredible, really incredible.”
One could be forgiven for feeling a sense of whiplash.
In the decade since Trump burst onto the political scene, world leaders have learned to get used to two versions of the US President.
There is the public, bellicose Trump who shows up in speeches, the Oval Office, or on his social media accounts.
And there’s the private, in-person Trump, who is often conflict-averse and eager to accommodate in one-on-one or smaller interactions.
During Trump’s first term, world leaders might have taken umbrage at the dressing-down they received on Wednesday, when Trump told them all the ways he thought they were failing.
“You’re destroying your countries,” Trump said. “Your countries are going to hell.”
In 2018, diplomats from around the world laughed at Trump’s boastful performance at the UN.
The response from the chamber this time was not outrage or even laughter, but polite applause and praise.
Foreign leaders have embraced the art of flattery with Trump, aware that he responds well to compliments and open displays of respect.
Just as easily, Trump is known to lash out when he feels disrespected or cheated.
“Leaders were obviously nervous about what Trump was going to say,” Richard Gowan, the UN director for the International Crisis Group, said of the meeting this week.
“There was a conspiracy among leaders to make as nice as possible with Trump because of the fear of what would happen if he got annoyed.”
Gowan added that from UN officials to world leaders, “everyone was so nervous about Trump’s volatility” that those who had previously been confrontational with him believed the best strategy was to keep their heads down even as he told them their countries were going to hell.
One European diplomat with a seat at the UN Security Council said that colleagues were trying to engage with Trump on points where they spotted willingness to address various threats.
There were few signs that any of the European officials wanted to confront or even publicly push back against the US President’s attacks on their countries.
They lined up afterwards to secure one-on-one meetings with Trump, heaping praise on him even as he heaped scorn on them.
In his speech, Trump used the peace negotiations his Administration had entered into with other countries as a way to argue that the UN was obsolete.
Rather than pushing back overtly, Guterres used this topic during his meeting with Trump to praise him.
“You have selected peace as a central objective of your amendment,” the UN leader said.
“You have been going north and south, east and west in all possible situations, getting or trying to get ceasefires, alleviating tensions, making peace agreements or building the blocks of peace agreements.”
Trump took the olive branch.
“I may disagree with it sometimes, but I am so behind it,” Trump said of the UN.
Still, the Trump Administration has clawed back US$1 billion in funding for the organisation and has informed Congress of its intent to slash another US$1b, adding to a funding shortfall. It has also withdrawn the US from a number of UN agencies and the Paris Agreement.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, betrayed not a hint of pique after Trump mocked European countries for purchasing Russian oil and natural gas.
“Think of it, they’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one?” Trump said.
“It’s embarrassing to them, and it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it, I can tell you that.”
In her meeting with Trump later that day, von der Leyen had a simple response.
“Trump is absolutely right,” she said. “We’re on it.”
President Emmanuel Macron of France, who is known to call Trump frequently, appeared to take a cue from Trump.
During his own speech to the UN chamber, Macron stood up against what he called the UN’s “harshest critics” — without naming Trump — and said they “want to change the rule of the game, because they want to exert domination”.
Yet in his meeting with Trump, Macron did not bring up their disagreements and instead spoke of co-operation between the US and France in ending foreign wars.
As they left at the end of the day, the Europeans had scored what they viewed as a major policy win. They had persuaded Trump to flip his view on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
After months of saying Ukraine should give up land to strike a peace deal with Russia, Trump on Wednesday said he believed Ukraine, with the help of Nato, could win the war.
Trump’s political tactics have long been known to those he deals with regularly. But they can also come as a surprise.
In former Vice-President Kamala Harris’ new book, she described how Trump attacked her publicly but charmed in private.
In one scene, Harris called Trump after a man was arrested and charged with trying to assassinate the former president at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“You’ve done a great job, you really have,” Trump told her. “My only problem is it makes it very hard for me to be angry at you. It’s like, what am I going to do? How do I say bad things about you now?”
Harris wrote in her book that she did not fall for his magnanimity.
“He’s a con man. He’s really good at it,” she wrote. “I’d readied myself for a phone conversation with Mr Hyde, but Dr Jekyll had picked up the call.”
Perhaps no example of the two sides of Trump was as stark as his dealings with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil.
The White House had dedicated a portion of Trump’s speech to confronting Brazil’s Government, accusing it of “unprecedented efforts to interfere in the rights and freedoms of our American citizens and others with censorship, repression, weaponisation, judicial corruption and targeting of political critics in the US”.
But Trump and Lula bumped into each other backstage and embraced.
“We had a good talk, and we agreed to meet next week,” Trump said.
“He seemed like a very nice man, actually. He liked me, I liked him. And I only do business with people I like. When I don’t like them, I don’t like them. But we had, at least for about 39 seconds, we had excellent chemistry. It’s a good sign.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Luke Broadwater and Farnaz Fassihi
Photograph by: Doug Mills
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