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What Trump’s UNGA Speech Tells the World

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1896 sculpture of Cain by Henri Vidal, not 2025 sculpture of Marco Rubio

Speeches by national leaders at the opening of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) have multiple goals and various audiences. Leaders of small countries hope to raise concerns with large countries in a setting where they can be the center of attention, if only for 15 minutes. Leaders of ostracized countries often seek to justify the behavior that got them ostracized in the first place. Some speeches are aimed at the leaders in the room, while others are aimed at the folks back home. Some are aimed at allied leaders, and others at competitors and still others at enemies.

Under normal circumstances, preparation for the US president’s speech is probably on par with preparing the State of the Union address to Congress. Both speeches utilize folks from multiple agencies and both are subject to weeks and months of internal debates about what will and will not get into the speech. While the SOTU address is as long as the President wants to make it, the UN politely asks that UNGA addresses be kept to 15 minutes or less, because so many leaders will be speaking. The UNGA speech is primarily foreign policy, while the SOTU is more domestic, but both are critical to laying out the president’s – and by extension, the USA’s – positions on all kinds of things.

For UNGA, the State Department takes the lead (broadly speaking) in preparing drafts and posing options to the final decisionmakers in the White House. Other agencies like DOD, Treasury, Commerce, and DHS, as well as folks like the Director of National Intelligence, all weigh in and put their requests into the funnel out of which the final draft emerges.

While all the prep work on the speech is under way, so too is the prep work for listening to the speeches delivered by other leaders. Is it more of the same, are there new policy nuances, or even major changes of direction being conveyed? Different analysts at State, DOD, and the Intelligence community will prepare a list of “what to listen for” points as they get ready to listen to the UNGA speeches from the countries within their purview. Once the speeches have been made, these same folks will then be sharing their analysis with their superiors and the White House. “Here’s what we heard . . . , here’s what it means . . . , and here’s how it may affect our own policies and responses . . .”

Meanwhile, every other foreign ministry and intelligence service in the world does the same with the UNGA speech of the President of the United States of America. Especially when that president is Donald J. Trump.

So what will these folks notice about Trump’s speech, and what will their analysis of his speech lead them to think or do?

First, they will notice the absolute dichotomy between policy prescriptions and petty personal grievances. Yes, the speechwriting team and the professionals behind them put a lot of substantive stuff into the draft of the speech that went on the teleprompter, but Trump went off-script so much that it was easy for that stuff to get lost in the verbal flood of whining about his domestic political enemies alternated with his own personal self-promotion. If the substance was prepared to fill the 15 minute time slot, the whining and boasting filled another 45 minutes or so. That 3:1 ratio speaks volumes about what matters to Trump: “Three parts me, and one part everyone else. And that ratio is me being generous to everyone else.”

Second, even in the substantive parts of the speech, the presentation was arrogant and insulting. (Why yes, I do think Stephen Miller had a large role in shaping the speech. Why do you ask?) Trump’s “I alone can fix it” from campaigns gone by was echoed in Trump’s declaration at UNGA that he has always been right about everything. From immigration to energy to wars to peacemaking to cultural issues to history, Trump’s assertion that he is always right and that the world would be better off if everyone just bowed down and did what he said was at the center of his speech. The prepared draft of the speech might have been more polite about it, but the message was the same. All the world could see how Trump views them — little kids who need to listen to Daddy, and then do what Daddy says so that they don’t get punished.

Third, Trump’s UNGA speech was a confirmation and distillation of something these folks have seen since 2015 from Trump: facts are optional to Donald Trump. They will see that science takes a back seat to whatever Trump’s particular views and preferences are. Signed agreements, especially those signed by someone other that Trump, are optional, not binding. Historical facts that do not fit with Trump’s worldview are overlooked, ignored, or blithely dismissed as irrelevant. Leaders and nations who seek to move Trump and US policies with fact-based arguments will have a very difficult, if not impossible task if they follow this route.

Fourth, Trump has no use for the opinions of other leaders, unless they comport with his own opinions. Dozens of nations call what Israel is doing in Gaza “genocide” but Trump does not give a damn. Countries of all political stripes recognize the reality of climate change (even as they might differ in how it should be addressed), but not Donald Trump.

Fifth, this speech confirms yet again that what Trump desperately seeks is validation. In his head, he dreams of giving his own version of Sally Field’s academy award acceptance speech — “I haven’t had an orthodox career and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time [I won] I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it. And I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me! Thank you.”

Sixth, these analysts from other nations regularly ask themselves “How long will Trump hold to a given position?” He renegotiated the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico in 2019 and finalized it in 2020, only to come back in 2025 and ask “who would have ever sign a thing like this?” Grudges over personal slights he will carry with him for decades, but agreements with other leaders and other nations are much less predictable.

The danger to all of this is one basic thing: the world is learning –again — not to listen to the United States.

  • When Trump and RFK Jr. issued their untethered-to-scientific-analysis declaration that Tylenol should not be used by pregnant women, not only did the US medical community loudly shout “NO!” but so did medical leaders around the world (UK, Spain, India, Australia, etc.). The US has a long record of leadership in medical research and treatment — think of the elimination of smallpox and the work to do the same with polio — but now? Around the world, folks are asking what used to be an unimaginable question: Should we listen to anything medical coming out of the CDC?
  • When Trump made his big Liberation Day announcements and sought to put tariffs on almost every nation, he followed up on this with all kinds of exceptions, adjustments, and incoherent statements. Today the tariffs might look like this, but next week they went down, then a month later some of them went higher than before . . . and what the hell will they look like next year?
  • When NGOs and other leaders around the world found the rug yanked out from under them when Trump used DOGE to cancel grants for things like malaria prevention and anti-AIDS programs, as well as letting US food aid funneled through USAID rot in warehouses rather than be delivered to those who feed the hungry, they had to ask if the word of the US is worth anything any more. “We had a five year agreement – you put up this and we’ll handle that — and after 3 years, you reneged. Why should we trust you the next time you want to make a deal?”

Trump and his lackeys can laugh at the world all they want, but if the financial world follows the lead of the medical world and the scientific world, and ceases to trust that the word of the US is good, the US will be in a world of hurt. A non-trivial portion of US debt is held by foreign governments. When the Canadian public decided not to travel to the US or buy US bourbon, that hit the US hospitality industry hard. If foreign governments decide that rather than buying US treasury bonds, they’d prefer bonds from Germany or France or Australia, that will mean the US government would have to offer higher rates of return in order to get the money needed to pay for tax breaks for the rich run the US government.

In the world of international affairs, trust matters, and Donald Trump is pissing away what it took decades to earn. Good luck with that, Secretary of State/National Security Advisor/Archivist of the United States Marco Rubio.

 

[Corrected to fix a minor editing error regarding bond costs in the penultimate paragraph.]

 

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Other Possible Classified Materials in Trump’s Safe

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[NB: As always, check the byline. Thanks. /~Rayne]

I’ve been sitting on this since last November. I had pieces I couldn’t quite pull together. But now that the FBI has executed a warrant on Trump at Mar-a-Lago to seize stolen presidential records and classified materials, those disparate pieces may be coming together.

While this is nowhere near as exciting as missing nuclear documents, is it possible there were other crimes in progress at the time Trump left office — ones which might have happened under our noses and may have posed national security threats then and now?

Please also note this post is partially speculative as well.

~ ~ ~

In late 2020, something happened in Morocco which might offer hints at whatever crimes might have been cooked up elsewhere.

There was little mainstream news coverage in the U.S.; we were too preoccupied with election-related coverage to pay much attention.

In exchange for recognizing Morocco’s illegitimate occupancy of Western Sahara – violating West Saharan Sahrawi people’s human rights to self determination – the Trump administration sold nearly a billion dollars in weapons to Morocco.

The deal was characterized as part of a process of restoring Morocco’s relationship with Israel. Morocco’s land grab was first recognized on Thursday, December 10, 2020 in a tweet by Trump. The arms deal was reported on Friday, December 11.

In other words, the arms deal portion of the negotiations was buried in the news dump zone, while much of the U.S. was watching Team Trump’s election theatrics.

The arms deal could have been another quid pro quo. As late as it happened in Trump’s term, as hushed and hurried as it was, with as little support as it had among Republicans, something about the deal still reeks to high heaven.

The United Nations didn’t see eye to eye with the Trump administration about this new disposition of West Sahara; it had been blindsided by what it saw as an abrupt reversal of US policy.

The UN continued to recognize West Saharan Sahrawi people’s human rights to autonomy though West Sahara remains a non-self governing territory.

What a coincidence, though, that Morocco issued a one billion euro bond in September 2020 before the US election. It had been toying with issuing a two billion euro bond at least as early as the first week of August, thought this may have been an expansion of a two-bond program announced in March 2019 with a one billion euro bond sold out in November 2019.

It’s also a coincidence that Morocco finished building a new base in summer of 2020, with plans to build or expand another for a large number of F-16 fighters and Apache helicopters it agreed to buy from the US in 2019.

Finally, it could be a hat trick that Morocco hosted Ukrainian national guard members for training early this year at that brand new base, before Russia’s attack on Ukraine began in late February. Was this part of the earlier negotiations?

Timeline:

March 25, 2019 — Morocco agreed to purchase 25 F-16s from US

November 2019 — Sale of 24 Apache helicopters to Morocco approved

April 2020 — Sale of 10 Harpoon air-to-sea missiles to Morocco approved

June 1, 2020 — Construction of a military base completed in Morocco

August 9, 2020 — Morocco considered 2 billion euro bond

September XX, 2020 — Morocco issued 1 billion euro bond

November 3, 2020 — US Election Day

November 9, 2020 — Trump fired SecDef Mark Esper over Twitter, replacing him with Acting SecDef Christopher Miller; Moroccan news noted this change.

December 10, 2020 — Trump reversed US policy over Western Sahara when Trump tweeted recognition of Morocco’s claim over Western Sahara

December 11, 2020 — Arms deal announced

~ ~ ~

Back in 2020, journalist Zack Kopplin of the Government Accountability Project had gotten a tip:


It’s a long thread written over several days which includes links to reporting Kopplin did.

At the heart of this story, though, is a war crime.

Remember when Trump said “We’re keeping the oil” from Syria in October 2019? That.

Trump openly expressed a desire to commit a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the 1907 Hague Laws and Customs of War on Land, and 18 U.S. Code 2441 War crimes, for starters. There may be more applicable laws which could have been broken.

Trump also knew the value of the oil in question — $45 million a month.

Kopplin was tipped to the basics about the company which was supposed to begin development in the northeast region of Syria, but the ultimate owner of this entity and development process wasn’t clear.

Following Kopplin’s reporting, some names pop up as connected by role (like then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo), or rumored as connected by other relationships (like Erik Prince who funded a business tangentially related to Delta Crescent).

There’s also the frustrating interrelation between Syria, Russia, Iraq, the Kurdistan region, Turkey, Iran, and the UN’s humanitarian aid for displaced Syrians. The aid became leverage in negotiations which have been fairly opaque in US news.

The status of the oil, too, isn’t particularly clear, with Delta Crescent’s development running into policy changes with Biden’s administration, terminating its sanctions waiver.

Add to the picture the fluid challenge of trying to keep Turkey on board with US during increasing Black Sea tensions, as well as Iran in JCPOA negotiations, thwarting Russia in more than Syria, while trying to assure both humanitarian aid along with global grain shipments.

It’s a damned complex mess through which oil may or may not be smuggled through Iraq by a Kurdish political family, sanctioned or not sanctioned depending on how the Biden administration is trying to leverage the situation for humanitarian aid access, improved relations in the Levant, or decreased oil prices.

What’s really unclear is whether there were any kickbacks offered in 2019-2020 for “keeping the oil” and if any, who received or receives them.

~ ~ ~

Since his testimony before the House Oversight Committee in May 2021, I’ve not been persuaded former Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller is on the up and up, along with his former chief of staff Kash Patel — one of two guys Trump is known to have named his representatives to the National Archives.

The timing of Miller’s placement as Acting SecDef in tandem with the election may seem like an obvious effort to pre-plan for January 6, but Trump is a crook. We need to look at the situation through a crook’s eyes.

What if January 6 wasn’t just about an attempt to obstruct the certification of the vote, but an effort to buy time to deal with illicit profiteering like oil obtained through a war crime?

American troops were supposed to guard the area in which Delta Crescent would develop the oil Trump was intent on keeping. Wouldn’t the Secretary of Defense need to go along with this long enough for a supply chain to be established from the oil wells to distribution?

Is this why Miller, a former Director for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare who worked during the Trump administration in counterterrorism involved in operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, ended up Acting SecDef in the last days of the Trump administration?

What does Christopher Miller know? What of his sidekick Kash Patel — the one who knew the contents of Trump’s classified documents cache?

~ ~ ~

Marcy wrote about some very strong candidates for classified documents Trump might have had at Mar-a-Lago. I think both the circumstances surrounding the rushed Morocco arms deal and the Syrian oil development are two more candidates, especially since both matters may have tentacles reaching into ongoing national security concerns.

But I also have a feeling we’re scratching the surface with the boxes of paper seized this week.

I hadn’t even gotten around to the Kurdish link to Miami, Florida or illegal drug trade.

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Friday Morning (Somewhere, Maybe in Alaska): Rhapsodic

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Friday, you old dog, you. You came back once again, a little worse for wear but alive and kicking. Let’s see what kind of jazzy treat we can cook up for you.

Ah, let’s have some Third Stream (not to be confused with neoliberalists’ Third Way). Music in this not-quite-jazz subgenre walks the line between classical music’s formality and jazz’s improvisational nature. This isn’t chamber jazz — jazz performed on chamber instruments, discussed in a previous Friday Jazz post. Third Stream is composed work heavily influenced by jazz, played by an orchestra.

In the example shared today, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, this is a composition without improv, but with strong jazz and pre-jazz elements. You can hear the pre-jazz particularly well in the piano; by pre-jazz I mean ragtime, using rapid, “ragged” hand movements (note this sound as early as 1:35 in the music video). The example here is a performance of the original composition using a 24-piece jazz band. Do open the video and play at YouTube’s site in order to expand and read the notes accompanying this piece. Compare this version to a performance based on the later arrangement of the same piece for a full orchestra (ex: Leonard Bernstein and New York Philharmonic, compare ragtime-like keyboarding at 2:09).

And then poke around and enjoy some other Gershwin. It’s a nice way to start the weekend.

All about the (free) speech
Good gravy. This week has been a mess when it comes to free speech and the media. Hard to pick a starting point, there’s so much content. Let’s begin with the circus-like story and a bit of a tick-tock for n00bs unfamiliar with it.

  • December 2007 — Gawker’s Valleywag outed technology venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, and a major investor in Facebook with a seat on its board of directors.
  • October 2012 — Gawker published part of a sex tape showing Hulk Hogan engaged in sex with radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge’s wife about six years earlier. (Christ, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.)
  • November 2015 — Hogan sued Gawker for defamation, loss of privacy, emotional pain.
  • March 2016 — Court found for Hogan, awarding him $115 million.
  • May 24, 2016 — Hogan’s lawsuit financier revealed — it’s Peter Thiel.
  • May 25, 2016 — Gawker tried to get award reduced; the media outlet has already been forced to sell a sizable portion of itself to fund the award to Hogan.
  • Today — Denton published an open letter to Thiel with a mess of questions, some focused on the legitimacy of Gawker media. It’s a fair question when Facebook is under fire for its presentation of news content to its users.
  • Speaking of Facebook, the now-open warfare between Thiel and Denton casts a different light on the stories Gawker property Gizmodo published about Facebook. You’ll recall the furor raised among conservatives after Gizmodo relied on a single conservative contract-employee as a source for its claim that Facebook filters out conservative media.
  • Media outlets are very concerned about the future, especially if Trump is elected to the presidency (see also CNBC’s opinion‘s mentioning a chilling effect, suggesting investormnt media very concerned). Billionaires shopping for cases to wipe out small-to-medium-sized media outlets could become more common where laws prevent the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP). Trump has admitted to using litigation to harass or punish media.

Bottom line: Reporting on someone’s sexuality and outing them merely because they’re a hypocrite isn’t adequate reason to do so. Some rich people are going to be asses as they have been through history; media should report when wealth’s actions affect the public’s interests. But using one’s billions to burn down the entire Fourth Estate isn’t merely revenge against careless journalism. Attacks intended to weaken a media outlet are attacks on the First Amendment in general; this only exacerbates inequality, and it’s fundamentally unAmerican.

And now speech having nothing to do with the above…

Long Reads
Hey. You could use a couple for your road trip to your summer weekend hide-out destination. Try these:

  • The Bank Robber (The New Yorker) — Great piece on an unreliable character, Herve Falciani, who ‘liberated’ client data from HSBC while working in IT at its Swiss facility. Wonder who’s buying the film rights?
  • Welcome to Disturbia (Curbed) — Interesting look back at the origins of our suburbs and how they were then perceived as toxic. A look at bowling alone, long before Bowling Alone.

That’s a wrap on this week. See you Monday!

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Peshawar High Court Rules US Drone Strikes in Pakistan Are Illegal, Comprise War Crimes

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In a remarkable ruling (pdf), the Peshawar High Court has ruled that US drone strikes carried out within Pakistan are illegal, that they are war crimes and that they must be stopped immediately. The court also directed Pakistan’s military to intervene should drones enter Pakistan air space.

As described by Alice Ross at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, this ruling comes in a case brought by the son of one of the tribal elders killed in the March 17, 2011 drone strike that killed as many as 40 innocent elders gathered to discuss mineral rights:

The judgment applies to a lengthy case against the CIA brought by the Foundation for Fundamental Rights on behalf of Noor Khan, a tribesman whose father was among dozens of civilians killed in a drone strike on a gathering of tribal elders on March 17 2011. Last year, Noor Khan also attempted to bring legal action against the UK government for providing information that could lead to deaths in drone strikes, in a case backed by legal charity Reprieve. The attempt was refused but he is appealing.

Lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who argued the Peshawar case, said: ‘It is a landmark judgment: drone victims in Waziristan will now get some justice after a long wait. This ruling will also prove to be a test for the new government as if drones continue and government fails to act, it will run the risk of contempt of court.’

The Independent described the case and ruling further:

In what activists said was an historic decision, the Peshawar High Court issued the verdict against the strikes by CIA-operated spy planes in response to four petitions that contended the attacks killed civilians and caused “collateral damage”.

Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who headed a two-judge bench that heard the petitions, ruled the drone strikes were illegal, inhumane and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. The court said the strikes must be declared a war crime as they killed innocent people.

“The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future,” the court said, according to the Press Trust of India. It asked Pakistan’s foreign ministry to table a resolution against the American attacks in the UN.

“If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US,” the judgment said.

For more background on the Peshawar High Court itself, this web page describes its jurisdiction and also has links to its history and other relevant information.

The ruling itself runs 22 pages. It begins by reciting the facts and requests provided by the petitioners to the court (emphasis added): Read more →

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