Trump at the 2020 UN General Assembly: 'Hold China Accountable' and 'America First'

On September 22, 2020, six weeks before the presidential election, Donald Trump addressed the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The pandemic had turned the annual gathering into a video conference, so his speech was pre-recorded and played in the General Assembly Hall in New York. It lasted about seven minutes, less than half the 15 minutes leaders are allowed [1]. Most of it was an indictment of China over COVID-19, delivered shortly before China’s leader, Xi Jinping, spoke [2]. The rest was a defense of “America First” and a list of his foreign-policy record, from the Abraham Accords to the killing of Qasem Soleimani. Quotes below are from the official text [3].

Key Moments

”Hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague”

Trump opened by calling the virus “the China virus,” which he said “has claimed countless lives in 188 countries.” Then he turned to Beijing: “We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China.” He accused China of locking down domestic travel “while allowing flights to leave China and infect the world,” and said: “The Chinese government and the World Health Organization — which is virtually controlled by China — falsely declared that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.” His demand to the assembly was blunt: “The United Nations must hold China accountable for their actions.” Fox News led its coverage with that line [4].

Vaccines “in the final stage of clinical trials”

He pointed to a record mobilization against the virus, including a surplus of ventilators shared abroad and treatments “reducing our fatality rate 85 percent since April.” Three vaccines, he said, were “in the final stage of clinical trials,” and “we are mass-producing them in advance so they can be delivered immediately upon arrival.” He promised: “We will distribute a vaccine, we will defeat the virus, we will end the pandemic.”

China’s pollution and the Paris accord

Trump attacked China’s environmental record, from ocean plastic to overfishing, and said: “China’s carbon emissions are nearly twice what the U.S. has, and it’s rising fast.” He set that against his own decision on climate: “By contrast, after I withdrew from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord, last year America reduced its carbon emissions by more than any country in the agreement."

"Putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first”

The heart of the speech was his case for putting nations first: “Only when you take care of your own citizens will you find a true basis for cooperation. As President, I have rejected the failed approaches of the past, and I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first. That’s okay — that’s what you should be doing.”

Peace deals and “peace through strength”

He listed his record: withdrawing from “the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal,” the destruction of the ISIS caliphate, the killings of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimani, an economic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, and the Abraham Accords, signed at the White House a week earlier by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, “with many other Middle Eastern countries to come.” He also said the United States was “working to end the war in Afghanistan, and we are bringing our troops home.”

China’s Reply

Xi Jinping spoke soon after and took a different tack. Without naming the United States, he called for global solidarity against the virus and made news of his own: China would aim to “have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060” [5][6]. China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, scoffed at Trump’s remarks. On climate he told reporters: “The United States should be the last one to talk about climate change” [2].

The Record Behind the Speech

The WHO and China

Trump had pressed the same charge four months earlier, in a May 18, 2020, letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The letter quoted the WHO’s own Jan. 14, 2020, statement: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) identified in Wuhan, China” [7].

Emissions

The numbers backed his comparison with China. China produced 28% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2019 and the United States 14.5%, according to the Global Carbon Project, the AP reported [8]. The International Energy Agency found that “the United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis,” a fall of 2.9%, and that U.S. emissions were down almost 1 gigaton from their 2000 peak, “the largest absolute decline by any country over that period” [9]. The U.S. Energy Information Administration put the 2019 drop at 2.8%, with emissions from coal down 14.6%, “the largest annual percentage drop in any fuel’s CO2 emissions” in its data going back to 1973 [10].

Vaccines

Trump launched Operation Warp Speed on May 15, 2020, calling it “a massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.” He set a goal: “we’d love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year” [11]. By the day of his U.N. speech, three vaccines were in large Phase 3 trials in the United States. The next day, the National Institutes of Health announced a fourth, and Dr. Anthony Fauci said: “Four COVID-19 vaccine candidates are in Phase 3 clinical testing in the United States just over eight months after SARS-CoV-2 was identified. This is an unprecedented feat” [12].

Peace through strength

The record he cited came from his own announcements. On Oct. 27, 2019, announcing the raid that killed the ISIS leader, Trump said of al-Baghdadi: “He died like a dog. He died like a coward” [13]. On Jan. 3, 2020, he said Soleimani “was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him” [14]. On Sept. 4, 2020, he announced that “Serbia and Kosovo have each committed to economic normalization” [15], and at the Abraham Accords signing on Sept. 15 he declared: “After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East” [16].

In Afghanistan, his administration’s Feb. 29, 2020, agreement with the Taliban made the U.S. drawdown “conditions based,” depending “on how well the Taliban comply with the commitments they have made,” a White House fact sheet said [17].

By the Numbers

7 minutes: the length of the speech, under the 15-minute limit [1].
28% vs. 14.5%: China’s and America’s shares of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2019 [8].
2.9%: the 2019 drop in U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions, the largest of any country, according to the IEA [9].
4: COVID-19 vaccines in Phase 3 trials in the United States by Sept. 23, 2020 [12].
4: Arab countries that agreed in 2020 to normalize ties with Israel: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco [18].
13: U.S. troops killed in the Abbey Gate bombing during the 2021 withdrawal [19].

What Happened Next

The vaccine came before year’s end. On Dec. 11, 2020, the FDA issued the first emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech’s, for people 16 and older [20], meeting the end-of-year goal Trump had set for Operation Warp Speed [11].
Out of Paris, twice. The U.S. withdrawal took effect on Nov. 4, 2020. Joe Biden rejoined as of Feb. 19, 2021. Back in office, Trump pulled the country out again, and that withdrawal took effect on Jan. 27, 2026, the United Nations said [21].
Out of the WHO. Trump ordered the United States out of the WHO on the first day of his second term, and the withdrawal was finalized a year later, CBS News reported on Jan. 22, 2026 [22].
More peace deals. Sudan agreed to normalize relations with Israel on Oct. 23, 2020 [23], and Morocco followed on Dec. 10, the fourth such pact the Trump administration brokered in a few months [18]. In his second term, Trump announced on Nov. 6, 2025: “Kazakhstan is the first Country of my Second Term to join the Abraham Accords, the first of many” [24].
Afghanistan. The final withdrawal came under his successor. On Aug. 26, 2021, a bombing at Abbey Gate, outside Kabul’s airport, killed 13 U.S. troops: 11 Marines, a Navy corpsman and an Army staff sergeant [19]. On Aug. 30, President Joe Biden announced that “our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended” [25].

Sources

Full Transcript

Read the full official transcript

The White House, 9/22/2020

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It is my profound honor to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Seventy-five years after the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations, we are once again engaged in a great global struggle. We have waged a fierce battle against the invisible enemy — the China virus — which has claimed countless lives in 188 countries.

In the United States, we launched the most aggressive mobilization since the Second World War. We rapidly produced a record supply of ventilators, creating a surplus that allowed us to share them with friends and partners all around the globe. We pioneered life-saving treatments, reducing our fatality rate 85 percent since April.

Thanks to our efforts, three vaccines are in the final stage of clinical trials. We are mass-producing them in advance so they can be delivered immediately upon arrival.

We will distribute a vaccine, we will defeat the virus, we will end the pandemic, and we will enter a new era of unprecedented prosperity, cooperation, and peace.

As we pursue this bright future, we must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China.

In the earliest days of the virus, China locked down travel domestically while allowing flights to leave China and infect the world. China condemned my travel ban on their country, even as they cancelled domestic flights and locked citizens in their homes.

The Chinese government and the World Health Organization — which is virtually controlled by China — falsely declared that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. Later, they falsely said people without symptoms would not spread the disease.

The United Nations must hold China accountable for their actions.

In addition, every year, China dumps millions and millions of tons of plastic and trash into the oceans, overfishes other countries’ waters, destroys vast swaths of coral reef, and emits more toxic mercury into the atmosphere than any country anywhere in the world. China’s carbon emissions are nearly twice what the U.S. has, and it’s rising fast. By contrast, after I withdrew from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord, last year America reduced its carbon emissions by more than any country in the agreement.

Those who attack America’s exceptional environmental record while ignoring China’s rampant pollution are not interested in the environment. They only want to punish America, and I will not stand for it.

If the United Nations is to be an effective organization, it must focus on the real problems of the world. This includes terrorism, the oppression of women, forced labor, drug trafficking, human and sex trafficking, religious persecution, and the ethnic cleansing of religious minorities.

America will always be a leader in human rights. My administration is advancing religious liberty, opportunity for women, the decriminalization of homosexuality, combatting human trafficking, and protecting unborn children.

We also know that American prosperity is the bedrock of freedom and security all over the world. In three short years, we built the greatest economy in history, and we are quickly doing it again. Our military has increased substantially in size. We spent $2.5 trillion over the last four years on our military. We have the most powerful military anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close.

We stood up to decades of China’s trade abuses. We revitalized the NATO Alliance, where other countries are now paying a much more fair share. We forged historic partnerships with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to stop human smuggling. We are standing with the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in their righteous struggle for freedom.

We withdrew from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. We obliterated the ISIS caliphate 100 percent; killed its founder and leader, al-Baghdadi; and eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani.

This month, we achieved a peace deal between Serbia and Kosovo. We reached a landmark breakthrough with two peace deals in the Middle East, after decades of no progress. Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all signed a historic peace agreement in the White House, with many other Middle Eastern countries to come. They are coming fast, and they know it’s great for them and it’s great for the world.

These groundbreaking peace deals are the dawn of the new Middle East. By taking a different approach, we have achieved different outcomes — far superior outcomes. We took an approach, and the approach worked. We intend to deliver more peace agreements shortly, and I have never been more optimistic for the future of the region. There is no blood in the sand. Those days are, hopefully, over.

As we speak, the United States is also working to end the war in Afghanistan, and we are bringing our troops home. America is fulfilling our destiny as peacemaker, but it is peace through strength. We are stronger now than ever before. Our weapons are at an advanced level like we’ve never had before — like, frankly, we’ve never even thought of having before. And I only pray to God that we never have to use them.

For decades, the same tired voices proposed the same failed solutions, pursuing global ambitions at the expense of their own people. But only when you take care of your own citizens will you find a true basis for cooperation. As President, I have rejected the failed approaches of the past, and I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first. That’s okay — that’s what you should be doing.

I am supremely confident that next year, when we gather in person, we will be in the midst of one of the greatest years in our history — and frankly, hopefully, in the history of the world.

Thank you. God bless you all. God bless America. And God bless the United Nations.

END