Trump just insulted almost all world leaders, to their faces, but what does it mean?

How to make sense of the last two weeks?
Because it isn’t just that Russia has stepped up its global aggression by invading the airspace of various European countries with drones, fighter jets and a surveillance plane.

It’s also the tirade US President Donald Trump let rip yesterday to 150 world leaders at the United Nations – a blistering one, even for him. And his silence after King Charles rolled out the red carpet for him in the UK.

Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher helps us connect the dots, which he says amount to “the early days of a transformation of the planet”.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Thursday,
September 25th. How are we to make sense of the
last two weeks? Because it isn't just that Russia has
stepped up its global aggression by invading the airspace of

(00:22):
various European countries with drones, fighter jets and a surveillance plane.
It's also a tirade that American President Donald Trump let
rip yesterday to 150 nation leaders at the United Nations,
a blistering one even for him. And then his silence
after King Charles rolled out the red carpet for him
in the U.K. today. International and political editor Peter Hartcher

(00:48):
helps us connect the dots, which he says amount to
the early days of a transformation of the planet. So, Peter,
we have to start off with Donald Trump's latest aggressive stance,
because I get the sense that this isn't just one
of those flooding the zone moments, and this really might

(01:09):
be something that is going to impact people across the globe.
And this, of course, is his tirade against Europe during
his address at the United Nations in New York City.
This is only about nine hours before we're recording this
on Wednesday morning. So tell us about what he said.

S2 (01:22):
Let me give you the a few of the high
points or low points, depending on your perspective. And then
make sense of it briefly, if I may please. So
he attacked the UN itself.

S3 (01:33):
All I got from the United Nations was an escalator
that on the way up, stopped right in the middle.
If the First lady wasn't in great shape, she would
have fallen. But she's in great shape.

S2 (01:45):
He assaulted NATO. You know, the primary multilateral alliance that
the US created. And these are all US creations, of course,
the UN itself, NATO, of course, you know, the US
alliance with Europe to keep Russia at bay.

S3 (01:58):
But inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much
Russian energy and Russian energy products, which, as you know,
I found out about two weeks ago and I wasn't happy.
Think of it. They're funding the war against themselves. Who
the hell ever heard of that one?

S2 (02:19):
And he assaulted the policies of most UN member countries
over both climate change and immigration.

S3 (02:30):
Not only is the UN not solving the problems, it should.
Too often it's actually creating new problems for us to solve.
The best example is the number one political issue of
our time the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your
countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding.

S2 (02:51):
That includes, of course, his assault continuing on the solemn
treaties of the UN, for example, the Paris Treaty on
climate Change.

S3 (02:59):
It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,
in my opinion. Climate change, no matter what happens, you're
involved in that. No more global warming, no more global cooling.
All of these predictions made by the United Nations and
many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong.

S2 (03:21):
He also went the next step. And it wasn't just
the content and the policies that he was demolishing. It
was the the sheer contempt for all the other leaders
in the room. There were something like 150 national leaders
sitting in that room. He called them repeatedly, called them
stupid for signing up to the ruination of their countries.

(03:45):
He said, you're destroying your countries with mass migration. He
called them stupid for not being able to see through, quote,
the climate change hoax, unquote, the disdain that he has
for his allies even more so than his enemies. News.
Just if you wanted to showcase moment where he could

(04:05):
insult all of them at once to their faces. This
was that. It was a landmark moment and the meaning
of it. If I if I could just give a
brief overview of how I think, what it adds up to, please.
It's a historic overturning by the leading power in the
world of the scientific revolution that began with Copernicus in 1543.

(04:30):
He he is overturning the all the precepts and many
of the discoveries and conclusions of the scientific revolution over centuries.
So it's climate overturning or challenging or failing to believe
any of the science on the planet. And this is
the same week in which his government has told people

(04:53):
that they shouldn't get vaccinated. This is a direct challenge
to the scientific method. Scientific conclusions and a science based
approach to governing countries and the planet. It's a death
knell for multilateralism, a death knell for the concept that

(05:14):
countries can work together to achieve better outcomes for all.
Starting with the UN going through to NATO and then
policy based treaties like the Paris Agreement. He's just shredding multilateralism.
And further, of course, it's an assault on the, um,
on the dignity and the sovereignty of all the all

(05:38):
the countries whose leaders he's just insulting. And because he
does it in such a showman like manner. They all
come and listen.

S1 (05:45):
Yeah.

S2 (05:46):
150 leaders sitting in the room, sitting through the whole
speech while he just insults them again and again.

S1 (05:54):
And I want to ask you, Peter, because of course,
you've been covering politics for decades now. So you are
not shocked easily. And I don't imagine you were shocked
by this. But when you saw him do this, were
you were you taken aback? Even though we know what Trump's, uh,
approach has been, certainly for years now, to Europe and
to the rules based order. But yeah. What was your
response when you saw this?

S2 (06:14):
I was not shocked, but I was struck by the
way that he brought together in one speech, uh, all
of his most reactionary and revolutionary instincts, policies and his
disdain for the rest of the world. If you had
to distill it into a single performance, it would be that.

S1 (06:36):
Yeah. Okay. And we've got to we've got to actually
discuss the recent backdrop to this, which is something that
I know that you've also been thinking about, which is
on the other side of the geopolitical coin. And this,
of course, is increased aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So I guess tell us about this in particular, the
countries that Russia has recently penetrated with airspace incursions.

S2 (06:57):
So the NATO countries, the EU and then the UN
Security Council have all discussed in the last week or
so these repeated intrusions of Russian drones, MiG fighters, Russian
fighter jets. And separately, a Russian surveillance plane into the

(07:18):
airspace of NATO members. European countries. There was Poland, Romania, Estonia.
And then since then, we've seen these shutdowns of airports
in both Denmark and Norway. Because of unexplained drones flying

(07:39):
into their airspace, they've had to shut their major airports,
Oslo and Copenhagen. Now, nobody's yet attributed it to Russia,
no government. But obviously they are all saying it could
well be Russia and that's the primary suspect. So on
the one hand, this is Putin ramping up his mischievous

(08:02):
and sabotage, if you like, on the Europeans, but at
the same time denying that he's done anything of the sort,
and told the UN Security Council meeting on Monday.

S1 (08:14):
An emergency meeting, I believe they held an emergency meeting.

S2 (08:16):
Yeah, an emergency, but came to no conclusions.

S1 (08:20):
Yes, I was going to.

S2 (08:21):
Ask you what to do about it, of course, but
Moscow simply said, no, this is all a fiction. It's baseless.
We haven't done any of that stuff. Um, the Europeans,
the Brits have all said, well, we're going to shoot
down any of your assets that fly into our airspace,
but that's what they've already been doing, or at least
with the drones, not with the MiGs, because that would

(08:43):
have been a step up, an escalation. At the same time,
Marco Rubio, publicly, the US secretary of state, said, okay, well,
we don't expect any Europeans to shoot down Russian assets.
We expect them to intercept them, which is traditional practice
in NATO. And that's what we NATO, because it includes
the US will continue to do, but almost instantly was

(09:05):
overruled by his boss, President Trump, who said he was
asked by a reporter, do you think that NATO countries
should shoot down Russian forces in their airspace? And Trump said, yeah,
they should shoot them down.

S4 (09:19):
Mr. president, do you think that NATO countries should shoot
down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace?

S5 (09:26):
Yes, I do.

S2 (09:27):
So he's endorsing an escalation in European response, a toughening
in the European response, which is interesting, except for the
fact that when he was then asked if the US
itself would participate as the lead nation in NATO, would
participate with its own military assets in the shooting down
of any Russian assets he refused to commit and simply said,

(09:49):
it depends on the circumstance.

S4 (09:51):
Would you back up NATO allies? You said that you
thought that they should shoot down the Russian aircraft. Would
you back them up? Would the United States help them
out in some way?

S5 (09:59):
Depends on the circumstance. But, you know, we're very strong
toward NATO.

S2 (10:03):
So he's saying, oh yeah, okay, you guys can do that,
but I'm not going to lift a finger to offend
the actual interests of Russia and Vladimir Putin, which was
a telling moment which again cast into deep doubt US
commitment under Trump to NATO and the mutual defense and
article five of automatic mutual protection.

S1 (10:23):
To say the least. And then you've also written that
at the same time, Trump is arguably in the process
of helping the interests of Chinese President XI Jinping with
their impending deal over the future of TikTok in the
United States. So maybe you can just touch on that briefly.

S2 (10:37):
Sure. And this is part of the pattern of Trump
indulging Vladimir Putin and XI Jinping, the countries that are
prepared to challenge him and stand up to him. He
just backs off. Hence Taco. Trump always chickens out. That's right.
The acronym generated by the Financial Times to describe his
trade negotiations. So. And the TikTok deal was a big

(10:58):
part of the trade negotiation in this case, as you know,
the US Congress last year legislated that the owner of TikTok, ByteDance,
major Chinese company, would have to divest its ownership of
the US subsidiary of TikTok. And Trump at that time agreed,
he said that's the right policy. But once he became president,

(11:18):
he said, well, look, all these young people on TikTok,
they were supporting me. So let's rethink this. Negotiates with
XI Jinping. The result is the headline says, oh, okay, um,
America gets its way and ByteDance is going to sell
to a consortium of US investors. But if you go
a bit deeper and look at what we know so
far of the fine print. While that's true, the ownership

(11:41):
will go to America. The control, ownership and intellectual property
embodied in the algorithm. You know, the secret sauce that
makes the whole thing work.

S1 (11:51):
The important.

S2 (11:52):
Part. The most important part. The only thing that really matters.

S1 (11:54):
That's right. Where the control lies.

S2 (11:56):
Except for the profits, which will now go to American companies.
But the control of the algorithm resides still with its
current owner, ByteDance and therefore subject to control by the
Chinese government, which all companies in China are under their
national security law. So, again, as a US advisor on
the deal, said anonymously to the Financial Times, this is

(12:19):
the ultimate taco deal.

S1 (12:22):
Yes.

S2 (12:22):
After all this, China gets to keep the algorithm.

S1 (12:29):
We'll be right back. Let's sort of get into this
because Trump continues to batter the UN and NATO. You've
just walked us through this. So how are the rest
of the world's leaders responding to Trump's increasing aggression and
authoritarian tendencies? You refer just a bit earlier to that
emergency meeting of NATO members at the UN Security Council

(12:51):
on Monday, that they had a bit of a tepid
response to Putin's increasing aggression. But, you know, you recently
wrote let's let's talk about this. You wrote about how
Britain rolled out the red carpet for Donald Trump during
his recent visit. So tell us, I guess, just how
much pomp and circumstance the Brits lavished on him, what
they were hoping to get out of the visit and
what they got instead.

S2 (13:12):
Okay, so they threw everything at this two day, uh,
effort to be completely obsequious. They really curtsied to Donald
Trump while keeping the crowds at bay. So Trump saw
no public parades or public crowds whatsoever. Yeah. And any
of the protests against him, what he saw was the

(13:33):
parading of the horse guard artillery. He sat next to
Kate Middleton at dinner. He had an audience with the
King in Windsor Palace in a scene that makes Downton
Abbey look, you know, modest, downscale and a bit daggy. Yeah.
It was just so over the top. Opulent. He looked flattered.
And that was, I think, the whole point the Brits
were trying to achieve. And of course, they said lovely

(13:55):
things about him and how wonderful and brilliant he was,
and that this was a unique honor to give him
his second state visit to Britain, because that's an honor
not given to any previous US president. So they really
went out of.

S1 (14:06):
Which is astonishing.

S2 (14:07):
Yeah, yeah it is, it is. And what they were
hoping for was to get some better treatment from Trump.
Now they claim that they got well, they did get a,
an announcement that there would be £150 billion worth of
US corporate investment coming into Britain. And by association, it

(14:30):
was because of this visit and this wonderful relationship. In fact,
almost all of the 150 billion was pre-committed was already
underway investment by US companies. So it was an attempt
really to claim something, claim credit for something already underway.
Other than that, they got nothing. They couldn't change Trump's

(14:51):
view where they attempted to where Keir Starmer, the prime minister,
tried to change his view on the Ukraine war. They
couldn't change his view on Gaza. They didn't manage to
get a reduction in tariffs. I mean, you would have
thought for all that trouble, they could at least have
enjoyed a bit of a discount on their tariffs from Trump.
But no, they went into this visit with a 10%

(15:13):
tariff on all British exports to the US. That's still
in place. They went into this visit with a 25%
tariff on British Steel, and that is helping to cripple
their already troubled steel industry. And that's still in place.
No concessions. The British press said the biggest outcome, the
greatest triumph, was that he didn't insult Keir Starmer or

(15:35):
the British public in the process.

S1 (15:37):
So low. I think you wrote our expectations of Trump now.

S2 (15:41):
Yes. So you really have to ask, is this wise
to so abase yourself and your nation in pursuit of
concessions that don't come? Uh, or is it simply endorsing
the emergence of an authoritarian leader?

S1 (15:59):
That's pretty damning. And it makes me want to ask
you about something that Californian Governor Gavin Newsom told you
the other week because he said he was, quote, pretty embarrassed, unquote,
by how complicit many countries were in aiding and abetting
Trump and Trumpism. So do you have any sense that
other Western leaders are feeling the same?

S2 (16:17):
I think all Western leaders are a little embarrassed by
what they are having to do to appease Trump. They're
all still figuring out how to try to handle him.
Gavin Newsom, governor of California and the de facto leader
of the opposition now in America as leader of the resistance,
is the other title that he's being unofficially accorded. Went further,

(16:40):
he said, I'm disgusted by the Western countries that are
aiding and abetting Donald Trump in his authoritarian takeover of
the US. That's what Gavin Newsom said in his interview
with me last week.

S1 (16:53):
And he even likened them. He said, they're doing exactly
what so many corporations are doing and so many billionaires.
I mean, that's particularly damning, right? You're talking about the
leaders of sovereign nations who are behaving like corporations that
are just in it for the money.

S2 (17:06):
Yeah. That's right. He didn't use this phrase, but it's
like they're tiptoeing around a terrorist and don't want to
upset him, and hoping that if they can just ingratiate
themselves sufficiently, they'll survive, even though they know the entire
entire building is going to get demolished.

S1 (17:21):
What are the chances that this latest tirade, really, that
Trump let rip at the UN, his treatment of Britain, obviously,
his continued coddling of XI Jinping and Vladimir Putin? What
are the chances that's going to be a wake up
call to other countries, you know, to to to fight
Trump's authoritarian tendencies? I guess in a more aggressive way.
And what would that actually look like?

S2 (17:42):
I think that like those US companies, like those the
governments are pretty much the same. They're all hoping that
they can just get through what they think is going
to be. And let's remind ourselves this is only nine
months in to a four year term. But they're assuming
that they can somehow skirt around the edges, salvage what

(18:02):
they can from their US relationships prevent any more damage by,
you know, simply flattering and abasing themselves before him and
trying to ingratiate themselves and get through the four years.
What Gavin Newsom said was, this isn't going to be
a temporary blip like that. He said, I'm absolutely convinced

(18:23):
that Trump has no no intention of facing another election.
He's not going to step down. And he said if
there is another election, it will be a Putin like election.
He is deeply convinced, he says, and concerned that this
is an authoritarian leader consolidating power. And anybody who's appeasing
him is helping him. What would it look like if

(18:46):
countries started to stand up and assert their own interests
over and above Trump's attempts to, I guess, subvert them,
to act against their own interests and their own existing
commitments on things like climate change or policy on Gaza
or trade or whatever it is. It would look a
lot like governments, leaders around the world realizing that it's forlorn,

(19:11):
that Trump will not honor any existing agreement and starting
to create alternatives. And we haven't seen that yet. That
would be a big departure point. Now, our Chinese friends
XI Jinping is is quietly sitting there smiling, offering only goodies, investment,

(19:33):
trade and the shared glow of being part of an
anti western anti-colonial system. This is as he's pitching it.
And countries, especially developing countries, are responding well to this.
Trump is driving them away. XI Jinping is gathering them up.

(19:54):
So that is the logical gravitational pull of an alternative
new system. We know XI Jinping hopes to create an
alternative global system to the US because he has told
us so many, many times and he has started to
create the institutions for that. So that is the slow,

(20:17):
if you like, behind the scenes alternative. As countries give
up on the US, they will gravitate to not not all.
Many will. Ones who don't feel they have an alternative.
Western countries are, on the other hand, would are most
reluctant to do that and will if they if they
do find their voices and find their determination, will have

(20:40):
to start setting up alternative arrangements that exclude the US
because they'll finally understand that the US is sabotaging rather
than aiding their interests.

S1 (20:49):
But at the extreme end, just to, you know, just
to sort of use our crystal ball here, would that
be like an alternative NATO without the US, an alternative
UN without the US, an alternative trading organization without the US?

S2 (21:00):
Well, Emmanuel Macron has been saying for years that Europe
needs its own defense system and its own defense agreements,
and a united European Army, and so on. That movement
really hasn't got much momentum yet. It's got a little momentum,

(21:21):
but not much. At what point does Europe say Vladimir
Putin is waging a hybrid war that's now starting to
cross over into a kinetic war against us, and we
have to take tougher action and make a declaration of war.
These hybrid, incremental, creeping tactics have worked brilliantly for Putin.

(21:43):
Remember he started in Crimea in 2014 and nobody really reacted.
And so he just kept going for XI Jinping. It's
been working brilliantly in the Pacific, so nobody's yet figured
out an effective response that stops them because mainly because
democratic countries are intimidated on the one hand and are

(22:04):
most reluctant to to actually commit to war, even though
it might be the only option for stopping the aggressors.

S1 (22:12):
I mean, they do use a lot of words, right? Like,
I was, I was I was on the UN website
and I was just watching the, the comments that were
coming in from, from nations with regards to Vladimir Putin's
increasing aggression. And the assistant secretary general of the UN said,
referring to intensified attacks by Russia on Ukraine and reported
casualties inside Russia. Quote, the world simply cannot afford such

(22:35):
danger to spiral out of control. And it almost reminded
me of that, like Monty Python sketch, where they're like,
stop or I'll say stop again. You know, it's just
like words.

S2 (22:45):
Yes, exactly. And and the great skit on, uh, Hans
Blix threatening to write a strongly worded letter to Kim
Jong un. Yes. To make him stop the nuclear.

S1 (22:57):
That's right.

S2 (22:58):
Nuclear program. Exactly. And Trump, in fact, insulted the UN
on this point. He's absolutely right. he said. You guys
are useless. You're supposed to stop wars. You haven't stopped anything.
You don't. You know, all you do is encourage the
invasion of illegal immigrants into my country. You're useless. You
haven't stopped any wars. Yeah, you're you're toothless. And the

(23:20):
UN does a lot of good work in a lot
of areas. But on that core mission of preventing or
ending war, it has been completely useless. And of course,
one of the reasons that the UN has proved to
be such a limp lettuce leaf is that the US
itself has often wielded its veto to stop yes, resolutions.

(23:45):
I think we are in the early days of a
transformation of the planet, and as fascinating as it is
and depressing sometimes, uh, this is the nature of the world.
The world is never going to be in a perfect condition,
and all we can do is try to make sense
of it as it happens.

S1 (24:04):
Well, thank you so much, Peter, as always, for your time.

S2 (24:07):
Always a pleasure, Samantha.

S1 (24:14):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by myself
and Kai Wong. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Our
head of audio is Tom McKendrick. The Morning Edition is
a production of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
If you enjoy the show and want more of our journalism,
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(24:41):
and sign up for our morning newsletter to receive a
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I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris. This is the morning edition. Thanks
for listening.