The New York Times noted with dismay that there was a big difference between reactions to President Donald Trump’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly this week and the way his appearances at the world body were received during his first term.
In 2018, Trump was openly laughed at by the representatives of other nations. They regarded him as illegitimate and a buffoon, someone they didn’t have to take seriously.
And as much as the global bureaucracy still regards him, his ideas and his supporters with contempt, they’re not laughing anymore.
Instead, they’re politely applauding his rants from the GA podium the way they do for other leaders and then lining up to ask for meetings with the president to beg for favors.
In some ways, that’s all to the good.
At least for now, it means that the United States isn’t, as it was under the Biden and Obama administrations, automatically funding every malign, anti-American, antisemitic institution and initiative coming out of the corrupt world body and its agencies.
But the new deference he’s receiving is also fueling Trump’s foolish craving for a Nobel Peace Prize, coupled with international agreements that will burnish his reputation as the master of the “art of the deal.”
And that is not so good.


