'Your countries are going to hell,' Trump tells European leaders

Provocative speech at the UN calls for end to 'failed open borders experiment'

- Andrew Roth

Donald Trump took the stage at the United Nations general assembly hall for the first time in six years yesterday to launch a full-on assault on the world body by accusing it of offering only "empty words", questioning its purpose and saying it should follow the examples of his own leadership.

In an inflammatory speech on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Trump called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners, accused the UN of leading a "globalist migration agenda", and told national leaders that the world body was "funding an assault on your countries".

In the speech to world leaders and visiting delegations in the grand general assembly hall in midtown Manhattan, Trump said: "It's time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now ... Your countries are going to hell."

Directly addressing European leaders in contentious terms, he accused them of "destroying your heritage" and allowing international migration because of misplaced "political correctness". Trump also attacked green energy initiatives as redistributing manufacturing power from the developed world to "polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune".

He also told them their countries were "being ruined" and pointed to UN programmes that he said provided food, shelter and debit cards to fund migrant journeys to the US.

"The UN is funding an assault on western countries," he said.