US assault on UN rests on a tragic misunderstanding

“Better together.” That's the optimistic theme that Annalena Baerbock, the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, chose for this year’s global gathering, the 80th. President Donald Trump instead confirmed in his speech what I keep hearing from the cognoscenti here at UNGA: The likelier trajectory points toward “worse apart.”

- Andreas Kluth, Tribune News Service

President Donald Trump addresses the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York City.

(Tribune News Service)

As is his wont, Trump heaped contempt on the UN as on other countries and people he disdains. 'The two things I got from the United Nations,' he sneered, are 'a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter' (Apparently, neither device worked to his satisfaction)

This is today the sound of America — the co-founder, host and eight-decade underwriter of the UN system — eating its children like Cronus. And the stony faces and occasionally audible gasps are those of the assembled world dreading the fate of what diplomats call the “international community minus one.” The US may or may not exit the UN as it once orphaned the League of Nations. But it's bad enough that America has morphed from the system's main benefactor into its spoiler.