In his final address to the United Nations on Tuesday, it seems President Obama could not give up the chance to offer another dire warning against GOP nominee Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the U.S. -Mexico border.
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“I think the way the president will approach this is trying to apply what we have done that’s worked in the last eight years as a template for how we deal with other crises”, Rhodes told reporters, pointing to the Paris climate agreement and Iran nuclear deal as specific examples of worldwide cooperation that the White House views as successes.
The detention of children is expected to be a focus of talks Monday.
The president’s remarks come a day after a United States and Russia-brokered ceasefire unravelled, partly due to a US-led air strike over the weekend that mistakenly killed Syrian soldiers. Civilians are trapped in besieged areas.
The participating countries have also pledged an additional $4.5 billion in refugee aid, Obama said.
Other persisting crises – the emergence of ISIS, a bloody civil war in Syria and Russia’s continued incursion into Ukraine – hadn’t yet erupted when Obama entered office but have strained his efforts to foster global stability. “These are the policies I’ve pursued in the United States, and with clear results” – touting progress is job creation, cutting poverty, improving infrastructure and investing in childhood education”.
Andrzej Duda, President of Poland, left, poses for a photo with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, at U.N. headquarters. Two years later, the USA and five other world powers reached the nuclear agreement with Iran.
“Gulfs of mistrust divide citizens from their leaders”.
Obama also stated that putting others down solves nothing, and we should instead be lifting them up, a definite anti-bullying message. “The Earth assails us with rising seas, record heat and extreme storms”. Nine days earlier, a Sarin gas attack killed as many as 1,400 Syrians.
Obama’s other major priority at the United Nations this year is to force more aggressive action to mitigate the worst refugee crisis since World War II, stemming in large part from the Syria war.
The President believes “we have to be honest about the nature of these conflicts and our worldwide community must continue to work with those who seek to build rather than to destroy”.
“We cannot unwind integration any more than we can stuff technology back in a box”, Obama said.
“I believe America has been a rare superpower in human history insofar as it has been willing to think beyond narrow self-interest; that while we’ve made our share of mistakes over these last 25 years – and I’ve acknowledged some – we have strived, sometimes at great sacrifice, to align better our actions with our ideals”, he said.
Denouncing the “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate attack” on an aid convoy in Syria, Ban said: “Just when you think it can not get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower”.
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It’s a theme that Democrat Hillary Clinton has put at the forefront of her presidential campaign – her slogan is “Stronger Together” – as she casts herself as the natural heir to Obama’s legacy. He says liberal democracy is worth fighting for despite the fact that “building accountable institutions is hard work”. He says top-down leadership and and governance by strongmen will ultimately lead to instability and war. The White House made a deal with Costa Rica this summer to host up to 200 people seeking asylum in the United States while federal officials assess their claims.
