Belgium's Top Diplomat Says Trump's UN Speech Failed to Deliver
"Trump must have mistaken the meeting, as he mainly delivered a message glorifying his domestic policy," Maxime Prevot told a news agency on Tuesday in New York.
Prevot framed Trump's remarks within the political calendar back home, noting that with the Nov. 3 midterm elections approaching, the president had every incentive to use the world stage to sell his domestic agenda to American voters.
His criticism extended beyond tone. The Belgian minister also pushed back on Trump's stances on climate change, migration, and the international courts charged with prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity — areas where he said the gap between Washington's worldview and Brussels' could not be wider.
"These are all topics on which his worldview is diametrically opposed to ours," Prevot said.
In a separate interview with Belgian broadcaster VRT following the address, Prevot underscored just how much is riding on the international rules-based order for a country like Belgium.
"We are not a military or financial power. Therefore, the protection of our prosperity depends on international law," he said.
Having laws on the books, he added, means little without the will to enforce them — a principle he said must apply universally, including to the world's most powerful nations.
"The great powers must not be both the offenders and the enforcers at the same time," he said.
Prevot went further, casting doubt on the UN's current clout and its capacity to act decisively through the Security Council.
"At this moment, I am not convinced that the UN is still super strong," he said, pointing to what he described as increasingly gridlocked decision-making among Council members.
That, he argued, raises the stakes for choosing the organization's next leader. Prevot said whoever succeeds Secretary-General António Guterres must be capable of restoring the institution's authority and influence on the world stage. The new secretary-general is due to take office on Jan. 1, 2027 — just months away.
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