US President Donald Trump said yesterday that the UN has "tremendous potential" but it needs to "get organized and start working effectively", Reuters reported, quoted by BTA, referring to his statement to journalists at the signing of several presidential decrees in the Oval Office of the White House.
Trump terminated the US commitment to the UN Human Rights Council, extended a temporary suspension of funding for the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and ordered a review of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The UN "has great potential and based on that potential we will continue to consider it, but they need to get organized and start working effectively", Trump said. "It's not well-run, to be honest, and they're not doing their job," the US president added.
Trump also said he was in no hurry to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to defuse a potential new trade war between the world's two largest economies, sparked by the US's sweeping additional 10% tariffs on all Chinese imports. China imposed targeted tariffs on US imports on Monday and warned several US companies, including Google, of possible sanctions in response to Trump's tariffs.
The US president said he was re-imposing "maximum pressure" on Iran, including efforts to reduce its oil exports to zero to stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Hours before his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed a memorandum restoring Washington's tough policy on Iran, practiced throughout his first term.
Trump also said he had instructed his advisers to destroy Iran if Tehran carried out an assassination attempt against him, the Associated Press reported.
"If they do, they will be destroyed", Trump said during an exchange of remarks with journalists as he signed an executive order calling on the US government to exert maximum pressure on Tehran. "I left instructions that if they do, they should be destroyed, nothing left", the US president said.
The US president said that it would be good to send criminally active Americans to prisons in another country, adding that there are countries that will accept criminals from the US, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The agency notes that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday described as "very generous" the offer of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to place dangerous criminals from the US in prisons in his country, stating that the Trump administration will have to study this proposal.
"It is obvious that we will have to study it on our side, there are clearly legal issues surrounding it. We have a constitution, we have all sorts of things, but this is a very generous proposal," Rubio said.
The U.S. Constitution provides protection for all its citizens. Courts have ruled that Americans cannot be stripped of their citizenship for committing crimes, meaning they cannot be deported, Reuters notes.
U.S. President Donald Trump later said he would accept the plan "immediately" if he had the legal right to do so, and said it would be cheaper than holding prisoners in private prisons in the United States.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Mexican soldiers and National Guard units were mobilized and deployed along the U.S. border on Monday as part of an agreement that temporarily suspends U.S. tariffs on imports from Mexico for a month if the Latin American country takes measures to counter the illegal trafficking of fentanyl, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The Mexican soldiers will be deployed in hot spots along the border with a high rate of illegal migration, drugs and weapons, including in the border Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora and Tamaulipas, military and government officials said.
The plan for the possible deployment of about 10,000 Mexican troops is part of a deal announced earlier this week under which U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily delayed imposing a 25% tariff on Mexican imports for a month. Mexico has threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs.