President Donald Trump couldn’t escape the domestic policy pressures of a looming midterm elections during his foreign policy foray in New York City for this year’s U.N. General Assembly.
Domestic political concerns before Nov. 3 coincide with many of Trump’s foreign policy decisions coming home to roost, from Iran, Russia and Ukraine, even Canada.
But for all the pressures the president faces, the United Nations offered the president an opportunity.
Council on Foreign Relations global governance senior fellow Esther Brimmer said Trump appearing at the U.N. was a chance for him to explain his policies in “sentences, not sound bites.”
“Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly is a good place for a leader to explain whether and how complex policies fit together,” Brimmer told the Washington Examiner.
Trump spoke in both sentences and sound bites during his 40-plus minute address in General Assembly Hall, which was more subdued compared to last year’s remarks that included mentions of an escalator and teleprompter, with the president on Tuesday repeating that his strategy regarding the Iran war was unrelated to the elections.
After campaigning, including at this month’s Republican midterm convention, with a message imploring voters to consider him to be on the ballot, he distanced himself from that message in the context of the war.
Trump told the U.N. that Iran is “waiting to see how I do in the midterm election” but “what they don’t realize is that I’m not running.”
“I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran,” he said. “It doesn’t even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Later, before a sideline meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Trump reiterated Iran “has nothing to do with the election.”
But in an apparent acknowledgement that the Iran war is becoming increasingly unpopular with the public and Trump’s average approval rating with respect to the conflict is now net negative 30 percentage points, the president, during a sideline meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that a U.S. delegation led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with their Iranian counterparts for three hours on Tuesday.
“It was a very good meeting,” Trump said. “I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to do it. It’s greatness, potential greatness, or obliteration.”
Against the backdrop of the Iran war, voters have also repeatedly told pollsters that their biggest concern before the elections is prices and inflation, including in the Economist/YouGov tracking poll for this week.
To that end, Trump added some campaign flare to his remarks, promoting what he considers to be his accomplishments on the economy and immigration.
“Our economy is the envy of the world,” he said. “Our military is the most powerful on Earth. Our technology is second to none, and we are leading in virtually everything.”
Regardless, Trump’s average approval rating when it comes to the economy is net negative 28 points.
During his bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the pair’s first meeting, a British reporter asked Trump whether he has any sympathy for the economic pain being experienced by British voters, not only American ones.
Trump shifted to national security in his answer, a response that has become routine as the war enters its seventh month.
“We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon and there’s a price to pay for that,” he said. “This should have been done by other presidents, or, frankly, other countries. Some country could have stepped forward, but there aren’t too many countries, frankly, that could have handled that. So I think we’ve done a great job. They will not have a nuclear weapon.”
Within the hour, during his meeting with Zelensky, Trump mentioned his desire for Ukraine to stop targeting Russia’s diesel industry and infrastructure with military strikes as diesel prices hit record highs of more than $6 per gallon before the elections.
“We’ll be talking about that,” Trump told reporters, before confirming that he himself is considering a diesel export ban.
He added, “It could have a little bit of an effect on regular automobile gasoline because when you do that, you know, it’s a sort of a flow. It’s a balance. But no, I’ve called for it. I’ve called for it within my people.”
Trump similarly used the opportunity of his meeting with Zelensky to remain adamant that there is a deal with Belarus to purchase potash after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko responded to Trump’s Truth Social post about an agreement to announce his country does not have enough supply to replace the U.S.’s Canadian potash imports amid the U.S.-Canada trade war.
FOX NEWS POOL SUSPENSION LEAVES TRUMP WITH CABLE BLACKOUT
Trump’s U.N. trip precedes this week’s state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the U.S.-China trade relationship at the top of the presidents’ agenda, in addition to the safety of artificial intelligence, which Trump wants to rename “superior intelligence,” as Democrats try to turn AI into another election issue.
“The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now, here and after officially called super intelligence,” he said. “Changing the name in that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing.”