ANALYSIS - Trump Used UN General Assembly Speech To Woo US Voters As Tougher Than Biden On China

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2020) US President Donald Trump used his United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) address as a campaign speech to convince voters he is tougher on China than Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, analysts told Sputnik.

In his speech to the annual UNGA in New York City on Tuesday, Trump blamed the Chinese government once again for the global spread of COVID-19 and called on the UN to hold China "accountable" for it.

The US leader also accused Beijing and the World Health Organization (WHO), which he said was "virtually controlled by China", of falsely declaring there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission and of transmission by asymptomatic carriers.

Independent Institute Center on Peace and Liberty Director Ivan Eland said Trump's tough comments had to be understood in the context of the upcoming US president election on November.

"Everything Trump does seems related to his re-election efforts, so he is bashing China� - after he praised China during the first part of his administration - because he wants to be tougher on China than Joe Biden," Eland told Sputnik

Eland said Trump thinks, probably erroneously - unless a hot war breaks out soon - that it is a substantial electoral advantage.

Trump and Biden have been dueling on who is tougher on China. Many American workers and businesses see China's rise as coming at their expense. In his speech to the Democratic National Convention in August, Biden said he would ensure that the United States does not rely on China supply chains.

Moreover, last week Democrats rolled out a $350 billion package to "counter the rise of China" claiming Trump has failed to do so.

Trump's speech also included aggressive rhetoric against a number of other countries such as Iran and Venezuela.

University of Pittsburgh Professor of International Affairs Michael Brenner pointed out that Trump's UN speech showcased the hunger for confrontation that drives US foreign policy for both Democrats and Republicans.

"What we should keep foremost in mind is the belligerence that has come to mark American foreign policy," he said.

Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are uninhibited about insult and accusation and are acting within the political context of the upcoming presidential elections in mind, Brenner acknowledged.

"The readiness to impose our will on others, justified by little more than undocumented assertion and justified in terms of narrow US national interest, is shared by a large majority of the foreign policy establishment," he cautioned.

Reckless, confrontational, go-it-alone policies enjoyed virtually unanimous, bipartisan support in Congress on a wide variety of issues, Brenner said.

"I refer to Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and of course Israel. On none of the associated issues is there a substantive debate," he said.

This common frame of reference, Brenner added, "is untenable as the intellectual foundation for a world order that conforms to global realities." The arrogant style will make it all the harder to make pragmatic adjustments on a rnage of issues such as the nuclear treaty with Iran, he said.

"The domestic [American] public has been so conditioned to view the world in these hostile terms as to raise the obstacles to any pragmatic initiative a Biden administration might wish to take [towards] Iran, Russia, China, [and] Venezuela," Brenner concluded.