Arthur Boutellis, Director of the Brian Uruquhart Center for Peace Operations at IPI, spoke to Al Jazeera about US-UN relations after President Trump’s speech at the opening of the 2017 UN General Assembly.

Boutellis suggested that relations had improved since January, with “the US seeing value in engaging through the Security Council” in regards to North Korea. He characterized Trump’s address to the General Assembly as being a “militaristic speech” which ran contrary to the “diplomatic solutions” advocated by Secretary-General António Guterres. Despite these differences, Boutellis asserted that there were positives to the speech, such as Trump suggesting that if UN reforms took place, the UN “might not be a bad investment.”