Trump urges UN nations to confront those who threaten terror

FILE: Trump’s proclamation differed significantly from last year’s proclamation for United Nations Day by then President Barack Obama. (Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

President Donald Trump used a proclamation on United Nations Day to urge all nations to work together as the world organization’s founders intended “and confront those who threaten chaos, turmoil and terror.”

Stressing the importance of multilateralism, he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the U.N.’s goals and said its purpose “remains as essential today as ever before” to have diverse nations co-operate “to preserve sovereignty, enhance security, build prosperity, and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.” He never mentioned “America First.”

Trump’s tweet and proclamation marking Tuesday’s 72nd anniversary of the entry into force of the U.N. Charter came four days after the president met with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the White House for their first extended conversation, which included North Korea, Myanmar, Syria, Iraq, terrorism and U.N. reform.

In his proclamation, the president said the United States continues “to believe the United Nations can play an important role in resolving international disputes and that its success depends on a coalition of strong sovereign nations.”

Trump called on all countries to tackle “increasing transnational threats _ including the spread of terrorism and mass atrocities around the globe, the risk of famine and humanitarian crises, and nuclear proliferation by rogue regimes that threaten others with the most destructive weapons known to humanity.”

Trump’s proclamation differed significantly from last year’s proclamation for United Nations Day by then President Barack Obama, who praised the U.N. for helping anchor the international order for more than seven decades and for its commitment to human rights.

Obama also stressed the importance of international co-operation, saying “the international community relies on the United Nations today more than ever before.”

He said the U.N. “is vital to our mission of shaping a better world one defined by co-operation over confrontation, a shared sense of purpose, and the understanding that the future of a child in America is inextricably linked to that of a child in Afghanistan.”

Both Trump and Obama paid tribute to U.N. peacekeepers as did Guterres, who spent U.N. Day with peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.