Trump: US now a 'cesspool of crime', a 'beggar nation'

Donald Trump has returned to Washington for the first time since leaving the White House 18 months ago, delivering a fiery speech blaming President Joe Biden for the country’s ills.

In a 90-minute address to the conservative America First Policy Institute, Trump said the United States is "a nation in decline”.

“We are a failing nation," he said, adding inflation in the United States is the highest in 49 years.

“Gas prices have reached the highest in the history of our country," he said.

He accused Biden of allowing an “invasion” by millions of migrants crossing the southern border.

“Other countries very happily send all of their criminals now through our open border into the United States,” he said.

“The next Republican president must immediately implement every aspect of the Trump agenda that achieved the most secure border in history,” he added.

Trump also said the United States “is now a cesspool of crime.”

“We have blood, death and suffering on a scale once unthinkable,” he said. “Democrat-run cities are setting all-time murder records."

The former president said the US is now “a beggar nation” that has been “literally brought to its knees.”

He accused Biden of having “surrendered in Afghanistan,” and allowing Russia to invade Ukraine. “It would never ever, ever have happened if I was your commander-in-chief,” he said.

Leading US publication Foreign Affairs on Tuesday touched on the decline of the United States around the world especially in the Middle East.

It said the United States today "simply does not have the resources or the political capabilities to play the role of hegemon in the Middle East”.

"Regional powers no longer believe the United States can or will act militarily to defend them. The Arab uprisings taught these autocratic leaders that Washington could not guarantee the survival of regimes that worked toward US interests," the magazine wrote.

“At the same time, the United States is a mess, consumed by political infighting and polarization," it added.

Washington, it said, has largely abandoned even the pretense of promoting democracy or human rights.

It touched on the Abraham Accords, through which the US is trying to provide a new order in the region.

According to Foreign Affairs, "all evidence suggests that Arab publics overwhelmingly reject the idea of normalization with Israel without a resolution of the Palestinian issue".

"An order relying on autocratic regimes to suppress public opinion rather than building an order that commands legitimacy beyond the palaces will not be a stable or enduring one,” it said.

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