NEW YORK (AP) Faced with growing tumult at home and abroad, President Donald Trump heads into his three-day visit to the United Nations this week hoping to lean on strained alliances while fending off questions about whether he sought foreign help to damage a political rival.
Trumps latest U.N. trip comes after nearly three years of an America First foreign policy that has unsettled allies and shredded multinational pacts.
A centerpiece of this years U.N. schedule will be a session today on climate change that is not on Trumps schedule although his press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, told Fox & Friends today that she wouldnt be surprised if he popped in and stopped by.
Trump will address a meeting about the persecution of religious minorities, particularly Christians, an issue that resonates with Trumps evangelical supporters.
The Republican president arrived in New York on Sunday against a backdrop of swirling international tensions, including questions about his relationship with Ukraine, the uncertain future of Brexit, the U.S. trade war with China, stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea and a weakening global economy.
The most immediate challenge may be Iran.
Trump will try to convince skeptical global capitals to help build a coalition to confront Tehran after the United States blamed it for last weeks strike at an oil field in Saudi Arabia.
Well, I always like a coalition, Trump said Friday, before going on to complain that under the old Iran nuclear deal, everyone else is making money and were not.
Trumps fulfillment of a campaign promise to exit the Iran nuclear deal has had wide ripple effects, leading Tehran to bolster its nuclear capabilities and dismaying European capitals who worked to establish the original agreement.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in particular, has been trying to lead Trump back to a deal and has suggested that the U.S. president meet with Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings.
Trump said Sunday that while nothing is ever off the table completely he had no intention of meeting with Rouhani.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran spiked after a Saudi Arabia oil field was partially destroyed in an attack that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed on Iran and deemed an act of war.
Now Trump will try to enlist wary world leaders in a collective effort to contain Iran.
He needs to win over traditional allies to do what traditional allies do, to band together against common threats, said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The attacks last weekend in Saudi Arabia are precisely the kind of thing that the U.N. was intended to address, to create rules for international behavior and opportunities for collective action.
Ukraine also looms large on Trumps schedule. Even one week ago, a one-on-one meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would have been seen largely as an afterthought.
But Trumps meeting on Wednesday with Zelenskiy will come just days after revelations that the president urged his Ukrainian counterpart in a July phone call to investigate the activities of the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump said he was concerned about corruption; Democrats frame his actions as an effort to pressure Zelenskiy to dig up damaging material on a potential 2020 rival.
