September 2025

250901

ENERGY CHRONICLE


Former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Green Party) presided over the 80th UN General Assembly without allowing herself to be provoked into correcting Trump when he stood at the lectern directly in front of her and spouted nonsense about the situation in Germany. Presumably, the US president had even intended such a provocation to lure Baerbock out of her protocol-imposed reserve and then accuse her of violating her official duties. As chair of the meeting, she could at most have admonished him to keep to the allotted speaking time of 15 minutes and thus taken the floor away from him. Instead, she let the US president talk endlessly. He then took full advantage of this opportunity to embarrass himself and the US in a way that would previously have been considered almost impossible.

Trump praises Germany for its alleged return to fossil fuels and nuclear energy

In a confused speech to the 80th United Nations General Assembly on September 23, US President Donald Trump made numerous new false claims. For example, he praised Germany for its alleged return to coal and nuclear energy:

"In Europe, all countries are on the verge of collapse because of green energy. Germany was on a very sick path, both in terms of immigration and electricity generation. They wanted to go green, and they went bankrupt. Then a new government came in, and this new government is now going back to where it came from: fossil fuels and nuclear energy, which is now safe if you do it right. So they went back to where they were before and built a lot of new power plants, and it works. I give Germany a lot of credit because they realized that this whole green path was a disaster, that it was completely bankrupt."

With these fantasies, Trump repeated and reinforced the nonsense he had already said about German energy policy in early April. At that time, he claimed that a new coal-fired power plant was being opened every week in Germany because electricity generation from renewable energies had failed (250406). Now he also claimed that the new federal government had reactivated nuclear energy because it had realized how wrong its previous energy policy had been.
“The Chinese love to sell wind turbines to others, but they don't use them themselves.”

“The Chinese love to sell wind turbines to others, but they don't use them themselves”


Federal Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) and Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Reem Alabali Radovan (SPD) listened with consternation to Trump's claims about the alleged energy policy situation in Germany.

Trump had previously praised himself for waging a decisive battle against electricity from renewable energies in the US:

"Energy is another area where the US is doing better than ever before: we are now getting rid of the misnamed renewables. They are a joke. They don't work. Too expensive, not powerful enough. The wind doesn't always blow. These big wind turbines are so ridiculous, so bad, and so expensive to operate. They have to be constantly rebuilt and they rust away. It's the most expensive energy ever conceived. Normally, you should make money from electricity generation, not lose it. But you can't get these things going without subsidies. Incidentally, most of them are built in China. The Chinese are pretty clever in that regard. They build almost all the wind turbines in the world and don't use them themselves. Do you know what the Chinese use? They use coal, gas, everything but wind. But they love to sell wind turbines to others."

London allegedly threatened with replacement of British law by Islamic Sharia

Trump described climate change as “the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the world” and a “global warming hoax". In connection with European migration policy, he claimed that London Mayor Sadiq Khan wanted to introduce Islamic “Sharia” law. This, he said, must be stopped. Trump thus echoed the slander of far-right circles, who, based on a falsified quote, accuse the Muslim Labour politician of wanting to replace British law with Islamic law.

Before he took office, the US was in big trouble, Trump praised himself. But now, after only eight months, it is the most popular country in the world.

"We are blessed with the strongest economy, the strongest borders, the strongest military, the strongest friendships, and the strongest spirit of any nation on the face of the earth. This is America's golden age.”

Trump wants to have ended seven wars in seven months, for which he believes he should be awarded at least one Nobel Peace Prize

With an eye on the Nobel Peace Prize he hopes to win, Trump claimed that he had “ended seven eternal wars” in just seven months. As evidence, he cited the conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, the US did not play a truly decisive role in any of these wars, although Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement they had negotiated themselves at the White House in August. In some cases, these are not military conflicts. And they have not been definitively resolved anyway.

According to Trump, no other politician has ever accomplished a comparable feat. He said he felt “very honored to have achieved this,” even though, sadly, the United Nations had not even tried to help him. Many would say that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for each of these seven achievements. But he said he was not interested in winning prizes, but in saving millions of lives.

Trump gives Putin credit for not anticipating that his war of conquest against Ukraine would last so long

Trump zufolge hat kein anderer Politiker jemals eine vergleichbare Goßtat vollbracht. Er fühle sich selber "sehr geehrt, dass ich das geschafft habe", obwohl die Vereinten Nationen traurigerweise nicht mal versucht hätten, ihm dabei zu helfen. Viele würden sagen, dass er für jeden einzelnen dieser sieben Erfolge den Friedensnobelpreis bekommen müsse. Ihm gehe es aber gar nicht darum, Preise zu gewinnen, sondern um die Rettung von Millionen Menschenleben.

Trump gives Putin credit for not anticipating that his war of conquest against Ukraine would last so long


Until now, it was assumed that China covered about 15 percent of its electricity consumption with wind power and photovoltaics. When Trump claimed that although the Chinese build almost all of the world's wind power plants, they do not use them themselves to generate electricity, the UN camera briefly panned to the astonished faces of the Chinese delegation.

Trump still refuses to admit that he failed miserably in the most important war of all and allowed Putin to take advantage of him like a foolish boy. Nor does he want to sever the fundamentally good relations that have always connected the two Russian dictators (which could also have something to do with compromising footage that the Russian secret service is said to have made during Trump's previous visits to Moscow). Instead, he apparently wants to give Putin credit for not anticipating that his campaign of conquest against Ukraine would last so long:

"I have also worked tirelessly to stop the killing in Ukraine. Compared to the seven wars I have ended, I thought this would be the easiest because of my good relationship with President Putin. It has always been very good. But, you know, in war there are always surprises. Everyone thought Russia would win the war in three days. But it didn't work out that way. It was supposed to be a short skirmish, but the actual course of events does not make Russia look good. It was something that should have lasted a few days or a week at most. Now the fighting has been going on for three and a half years, and every week five to seven thousand soldiers on both sides are dying. And many civilians are also being killed by rockets and drones in the cities. This war should never have happened and would not have happened under my presidency.“

”All I got from the UN was an escalator and a teleprompter that didn't work."

The US president had little good to say about the United Nations, before whose 80th General Assembly he was speaking. He said the UN had great potential but was not making use of it: “You write a strongly worded letter, and then nothing comes of it. Empty words don't end wars. The only thing that ends war is action.” He said he received no thanks from the UN for ending seven wars in seven months. He also accused them of not considering his companies when awarding a contract to renovate the UN building.

Currently, however, Trump was particularly outraged that the escalator suddenly stopped when he and his wife Melania were on their way to the meeting room. And then the UN teleprompter, from which he wanted to read his speech, also failed:

"All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that stopped halfway up. If the First Lady weren't in such good shape, she would have fallen. But she's in great shape. We're both in great shape. And then there was the teleprompter that didn't work. Those are the two things I got from the United Nations: a broken escalator and a broken teleprompter. Thank you very much."

Meanwhile, it turned out that the escalator wasn't broken at all. Rather, a US reporter had rushed ahead of the Trumps to film them going up the stairs, accidentally triggering the emergency stop. And the teleprompter that failed wasn't operated by the UN, but by the White House. The chair of the meeting, Annalena Baerbock, who endured Trump's tirade with stoic calm and did not even reprimand him for exceeding his speaking time, which she would have been perfectly entitled to do (Trump spoke for about 50 minutes instead of the scheduled 15), therefore allowed herself at least a brief remark to the plenary after the would-be Nobel Peace Prize winner had left the stage: “Don't worry, the UN teleprompters are working perfectly.”

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