Expectations were low for Donald Trump’s address to the UN on Tuesday, and yet somehow it was even worse than expected. He does not perform well in formal settings, like chambers of government, preferring a blingier room, like Mar-a-Lago, or an outdoor rally. For years, he has made no secret of his hostility to the UN, and the very principles of international order that define it.

In recent years, that hostility has deepened into something more like a full-on assault, with frequent attacks on the International Criminal Court (perhaps out of fear that he will someday be indicted), on the UN’s climate agenda, and on Unesco (which the US decided to withdraw from in July 2025).

His flamboyant effort to launch a so-called Board of Peace in January (just before launching his war of choice on Iran) was another attack on the UN, which, at times, the president wondered if his new creation might simply replace.

Five months later, it has achieved little in the way of tangible results, except to demand huge sums of money from its small number of member nations, most of which are petrostates. Not one of those states can say that the Middle East is in better shape since the board came into existence, with a crisis that is deepening daily and may engulf Saudi Arabia soon.

But even by Trumpian standards, this was a hollow speech, long on snarling belligerence and short on ideas or policy proposals. The president read robotically from a teleprompter for long stretches, except when he remembered one of the many complaints about the world that he has memorized from his rallies, and a history of grievances that goes back to his rise as a xenophobic developer in the 1980s.

In short, he insulted nearly everyone in the room, from the Middle Eastern countries who are wondering about the validity........

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