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international strategic discussion with Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly
28 September 2018
From the Schiller Institute Weekly Webcast HARLEY SCHLANGER: There’s an extraordinary series of developments around the United Nations General Assembly. I think it’s very important that people get a sense of what’s actually occurring and what the implications are. We also are going to take a look at the whole continuation of fallout from the declassification order from President Trump. But I think the best place to start would be Helga, how did you see the speech, the importance, the pros and cons in what was presented? HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think, given the Western, or I should say, European/Western mainstream media, they choose to only report that Trump got laughter after he praised the accomplishments of his administration, and they blocked out entirely what were the really important aspects of his speech; and the many bilateral diplomatic activities. Because you have to take all of this as one picture to really understand what is going on, as you say, while the coup attempt against Trump, is on the one side still ongoing, but you know, it’s also clear this Trump made this speech, and I think the strong points were clearly that he emphasized the right and need of having sovereignty for every country, he praised other cultures as being extremely important. He made a very articulated pledge for patriotism, which was quite different from the flat, two-dimensional pitch of people like Steve Bannon, but was actually important and very good. Trump attacked the failure of the free trade institutions, the failure of the WTO, and the International Criminal Court, the ICC, and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations — all institutions which we have criticized for very similar reasons. So I think the speech overall was very important. There were some problematic points in it, which I will go into in a second. But I think one has to first look at the total spectrum of diplomatic activities, that Trump conducted on the sidelines. First of all, he met with President Moon Jae-in from South Korea. This was quite remarkable, because it highlights that what we had characterized as the potential for a "Singapore model," following the summit of Trump with North Korean President Kim Jong-un in July, several months ago, basically where I said you can apply this "Singapore model" to every crisis in the world. That you can take a crisis like the one between North and South Korea, and North Korea and the United States, and just by changing the entire parameters in the New Silk Road Spirit, by turning confrontation into cooperation in the context of economic win-win cooperation, which is now possible, because of the environment of the Belt and Road Initiative, that this can be applied for every country. And contrary to all the press reports, this is working. President Moon — and I would like Western so-called leaders to just reflect on the fact that the President of South Korea basically said Trump has become more than a friend, that he has telephoned him 20 times, had seven summits, and that they have complete and perfect trust. I think Lavrov commented on the success of Trump with the North Korea developments, pledging that Russia, for its part, would do everything possible for the economic development of North Korea, including the development of infrastructure. So, also, it is mooted that Trump will meet with Kim Jong-un fairly soon, and this is all on a very good track. So I think this is the big success story of the Trump Administration, which is completely blacked out by the mainstream media. Then, he had also a sideline summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. And this is another extremely important development, this time, not so much between Japan and the United States, but between Japan and Russia, because what Abe basically also said in his UN General Assembly speech, that he hopes to have a peace treaty with Russia before the end of the year. And I should have also mentioned North and South Korea pledging unification and a peace treaty also before the end of the year. Back to Japan: Abe said that if such a peace treaty between Japan and Russia will be signed, it will contribute greatly to peace and stability in the entire East Asia region. So, here you have two extremely important strategic developments, which are almost not mentioned in the mainstream media. Then, while President Trump really attacked Iran — in my view, it’s not Iran which is entirely responsible for terrorism: look at what Saudi Arabia is still doing in Yemen — anyway, one should have a more balanced view. One can only hope that President Trump is preparing a Middle East general peace plan. There are indications that he’s doing that, for example, he also met with Netanyahu, and after that agreed, and basically said that he would endorse a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, that it would be left up them, if they wanted to have a one-state or a two-state solution, but this is very important that he reiterated the endorsement for a two-state solution. Obviously, this is very difficult, after all these illegal settlements which have occurred in the recent years — but nevertheless, this is also on the way. And one sign that there may be actually a broader, more strategic plan underway is the fact that President Trump also met with the new Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, and there they discussed not only Libya, the whole Mediterranean policy, but according to some Italian press reports, it was also discussed that Italy could play a mediation role between the United States and Iran. Now, this is very important, because Italy is the only Western country which has basically developed a positive attitude of cooperation with the Trump Administration. This was visible at the G7 meeting in Canada, and Conte has already visited the White House, and now they have continued that. But I think this is very, very important, because Italy not only works with President Trump, but as the recent trips of the different ministers and cabinet members from Italy to China demonstrate, that Italy is the one European country which has developed excellent relations to China, and China is obviously important in the background of the Iran question. So as you can see, this is a very widespread and complicated network of diplomatic activities, which is actually skillful and it completely speaks counter to the way at least the European media and naturally the mainstream media in the United States are characterizing Trump, and the evil accusations of coup plottters, that he is a misfit and is not capable of handling things. But what he is portraying in the context of the UN General Assembly is quite the opposite: It shows a very far-sighted diplomatic effort involving many parts of the world and many crisis spots. This is all very interesting, times, the relationship of the United States, Russia, and China are really the essence of the ability to maintain peace, and therefore everything which has to do with that is of the utmost importance. |