UNITED NATIONS (CN) – In the same hall where he threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea last year, President Donald Trump opened to unexpected comic relief Tuesday in his second big speech at the General Assembly.
“Today, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we’ve made,” Trump began, before paying himself a compliment. “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”
The boast tickled the hall of diplomats, which erupted into raucous laughter.
Taken aback, Trump ad libbed: “Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK."
Last year, when he took the same marble dais, Trump had strongly hinted at pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal but he had not yet done so. This year, Trump said the Islamic Republic could expect tougher sanctions come November. “And more will follow,” he warned.
“Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death and destruction,” Trump said. “They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani traded back fire later in the day.
“We have assembled here today as the world is suffering from recklessness and disregard of some states for international values and institutions,” Rouhani said.
“It is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think that they can secure their interests better or at least in the short-term ride public sentiments and gain popular support through the fomenting of extremists, nationalism and racism, and through xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition as well as through the trampling of global rules and undermining international institutions,” the Iranian president added later.
Eliminating any doubt he had been insulting Trump, Rouhani added that such leaders act “even through preposterous and abnormal acts such as convening a high-level meeting of the Security Council.”
Trump will chair a session of the U.N. Security Council on the proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction on Wednesday.
If his anti-Iran rhetoric remained a constant, Trump dramatically changed his tone on North Korea, the U.N. member state he previously threatened with annihilation and whose ruling dictator he used to call “Little Rocket Man.”
“I'd like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and the steps he has taken," Trump said. “So much work remains to be done.”
Conspicuously absent from Trump’s U.N. speech for a second year in a row was any reference to Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, he lavishly praised in July, immediately after U.S. prosecutors formally charged Kremlin intelligence officers with hacking operations designed to tilt the election in Trump’s favor.
Trump’s words toward Venezuela remained as harsh today as last year, though the Latin American country’s geopolitical situation has changed.
Before Trump delivered his speech, Brazilian and Ecuadorean presidents spoke of the more than 1 million Venezuelan migrants seeking refuge within their borders. The New York Times recently reported that Trump administration officials met with plotters of a coup in Venezuela, whose socialist politics Trump ridiculed again.