The 74th Assembly of the United Nations General Assembly opened on September 17, 2019, with the high-level debates following on September 24. The first Youth Climate Summit and Climate Action Summit convened ahead of the high-level debates, and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg’s impassioned speech to world leaders at the Climate Action Summit set the stage for heated debate both at the UN and domestically over the issue. United States President Donald Trump kicked-off high-spirited exchange with his international counterparts with his speech to the General Assembly, in which he asserted that “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots,” critiqued the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) classification of China as a developing country, and criticized China for its handling of protests in Hong Kong and Iran for its “violent and unprovoked aggression.” In this Rising Powers Policy Alert, we review the developments in bilateral and multilateral cooperation and discord at the largest annual meeting of world leaders that concluded September 30. Read the full Policy Alert here.
