UNITED NATIONS -- President Donald Trump urged world leaders to hold China accountable for the spread of the coronavirus, in a video address to a scaled-down U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday as America's coronavirus death toll topped 200,000.
"The United Nations must hold China accountable for their actions," Trump said, without elaborating on what punishment he thought was warranted.
Trump urged other leaders to put their own countries first, a message that echoed his "America First" campaign mantra.
"Only when you take care of your own citizens, will you find a true basis for cooperation," Trump said. "As president, I have rejected the failed approaches of the past -- and I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first. That's OK. That's what you should be doing."
But it was the coronavirus that was the core and the backdrop of Trump's address.
China's U.N. ambassador rejected criticism of China on its handling of covid-19 as "totally baseless."
"At this moment, the world needs more solidarity and cooperation, and not a confrontation," Ambassador Zhang Jun said before introducing President Xi Jinping's prerecorded speech. "We need to increase mutual confidence and trust, and not the spreading of political virus. China resolutely rejects the baseless accusation against China."
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned at the U.N.'s first-ever virtual meeting of global leaders Tuesday that the world is facing an "epochal" health crisis, the biggest economic calamity and job losses since the Great Depression, threats to human rights and worries of a new Cold War between the U.S. and China.
In his grim state of the world speech to the U.N. General Assembly's annual high-level meeting, the U.N. chief said the coronavirus that "brought the world to its knees" was but "a dress rehearsal for the world of challenges to come."
He called for global unity, first and foremost to fight the pandemic, and sharply criticized populism and nationalism for failing to contain the virus and for often making things worse.
The pandemic must serve as an "electric shock" that wakes up the United Nations, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech Tuesday.
"Our organization itself ran the risk of impotency," with permanent members not able to meet at the peak of the epidemic "because two of them preferred to display their rivalry," Macron said in a veiled jab at China and the U.S.
Trump's determination to redraw the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world has seen the World Trade Organization sidelined, and agreements on climate change and Iran's nuclear program called into question. In May, he announced that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, the UN's health agency, because it was unduly influenced by China.
PUTIN ON SANCTIONS
The prerecorded speeches from world leaders at the opening of the six-day session reflected deep global divisions.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin urged an end to U.S. and European Union sanctions. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking on behalf of the African Union, said rich nations haven't been generous enough in helping developing nations combat covid-19, which is setting back the continent's development.
Ramaphosa also is the first world leader at the United Nations' annual gathering to mention the Black Lives Matter movement.
"As a country that has known too well the anguish of institutional racism, South Africa supports the demands for swift actions against racism" whether it be perpetrated by companies, states or others, he said.
Days after the pandemic shut down big parts of the world in March, Guterres called for a global cease-fire to tackle it. On Tuesday, he appealed for a 100-day push by the international community, led by the U.N. Security Council, "to make this a reality by the end of the year."
"There is only one winner of conflict during a pandemic: the virus itself," the secretary-general stressed.
Reiterating a warning he made to world leaders a year ago about rising U.S.-China rivalry, he said, "we are moving in a very dangerous direction."
"Our world cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe in a great fracture -- each with its own trade and financial rules and internet and artificial intelligence capacities," Guterres said. "A technological and economic divide risks inevitably turning into a geostrategic and military divide. We must avoid this at all costs."
In his appeal for a global cease-fire, Guterres said ending wars in the Middle East and Africa is critical to defeating the coronavirus.
Guterres said armed movements from Cameroon to Colombia, the Philippines and beyond responded to his original appeal even if several cease-fires they announced didn't last. But there are reasons to be hopeful, he said, pointing to a new peace agreement in Sudan, the launch of Afghan peace negotiations, and cease-fires largely holding in Syria's Idlib province, Ukraine and elsewhere.
The U.N. chief delivered his speech in the vast General Assembly Hall, where only one mask-wearing diplomat from each of the U.N.'s 193 member nations was allowed, spread out in the chamber.
"In a world turned upside down, this General Assembly Hall is among the strangest sights of all," Guterres said. "The covid-19 pandemic has changed our annual meeting beyond recognition. But it has made it more important than ever."
BRAZIL ON MEDIA
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, whose country by tradition is the first speaker, trumpeted his focus on the economy in dealing with the pandemic, lambasting "segments of the Brazilian media" for "spreading panic" by encouraging stay-at-home orders and prioritizing public health over the economy.
Bolsonaro has downplayed the severity of the virus and has repeatedly said shutting down the economy would inflict worse hardship on the population. That's despite Brazil reporting the second-highest coronavirus death toll after the United States, with more than 137,000 dead, according to statistics collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the start of the pandemic "where countries were left on their own," stressing that "effective multilateralism requires effective multilateral institutions." He urged rapid implementation of "comprehensive and meaningful reforms, starting with the restructuring of the Security Council," the U.N.'s most powerful body with five veto-wielding members -- the U.S., China, Russia, Britain and France.
In a fiery speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani whose country is facing the worst covid-19 crisis in the Middle East, lashed out at the U.S. sanctions but declared that his country will not submit to U.S. pressure.
He said the United States can't impose negotiations or war on Iran, stressing that his country is "not a bargaining chip in U.S. elections and domestic policy." He used George Floyd's death in May under the knee of a police officer as a metaphor for Iran's "own experience" with the United States.
"We instantly recognize the feet kneeling on the neck as the feet of arrogance on the neck of independent nations," Rouhani said.
Tensions have run high this year, and Trump signed an executive order this week to enforce all U.N. sanctions on Iran because it's not complying with a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers -- a move that most of the world rejects as illegal.
MACRON REJECTION
Macron, in his speech, rejected U.S. demands for U.N. members to reimpose international sanctions on Iran, arguing that the Trump administration had forfeited the right to trigger such measures when it withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018.
Following the U.S. lead now "would undermine the unity of the Security Council, the integrity of its decisions, and would run the risk of further aggravating tensions in the region," he said.
It's not the first time France's 42-year-old leader has offered blunt and bleak assessments of the traditional international order. Last year, he said NATO was "brain dead" and wondered whether its commitment to collective defense still held. But now he's arguing that the pandemic is an inflection point that offers a chance to make real changes.
The president of Africa's most populous country, Nigeria, called for the "uninhibited supply of safe and effective coronavirus vaccines for all."
African nations have been outspoken in seeking the equitable distribution of any covid-19 vaccine, while watching as some of the world's richest countries strike deals with pharmaceutical companies to secure millions of doses of potential vaccines.
President Muhammadu Buhari, in his speech, warned that if the U.N. can't marshal an inclusive response to the pandemic, then it "would have failed in its core mission of giving expression, direction and solution to the yearnings of the international community."
The U.N.'s health agency, the World Health Organization, has said Africa should receive at least 220 million doses through an international effort to develop and distribute a vaccine known as Covax.
But Africa's top public health official has said the continent needs at least 1.5 billion doses, enough to cover 60% of the population for "herd immunity" with the two likely required doses.
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez is asking the world to think beyond creating a vaccine. He challenged leaders to use the health crisis as a moment of inflection to find solutions for other scourges as well.
He says the world needs to "be capable of dreaming and creating a vaccine against social injustice, environmental destruction and discrimination."
The center-left president also urged leaders to treat an eventual covid-19 vaccine as a global public good accessible equitably to all countries.
Fernandez said the planet is facing an "historic opportunity" to unite and that international cooperation "like we once knew how to do" is the only path forward.
GLOBAL PRIORITIES
The General Assembly's annual meetings traditionally serve as a platform for countries to tout accomplishments, seek support, stoke rivalries and express views on global priorities.
Colombian President Ivan Duque is calling on the international community to reject Venezuela's plans to hold a legislative election in December.
Duque called the vote a "manufactured orchestra" that "looks to legitimize the dictatorship."
He also highlighted a recent U.N. Human Rights Council report accusing Nicolas Maduro's government of committing crimes against humanity, including torture and killings blamed on security forces.
U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido has called on Venezuelans not to participate in the planned election to replace National Assembly lawmakers.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has defended his drug crackdown and dismissed criticism from human rights advocates as he addressed the U.N.'s annual gathering of world leaders for the first time.
With the coronavirus taking a toll on the Philippines, the often brash Duterte struck a somewhat conciliatory tone about the organization he's often criticized and at times threatened to leave.
Duterte said "the Philippines values the role that the United Nations plays in its fight against the pandemic."
He welcomed the U.N.'s introduction of a relief fund and called on the international community to ensure potential vaccines are accessible to all.
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Trump briefly highlighted agreements the U.S. brokered between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The historic agreements come as relations between the Jewish state and Arab nations are thawing as a pushback against Iran.
The president also mentioned the U.S. brokering of economic cooperation between Serbia and Kosovo.
"I am supremely confident that next year, when we gather in person, we will be in the midst of one of the greatest years in our history," Trump said.
Information for this article was contributed by Jennifer Peltz, Edith M. Lederer, Deb Riechmann and Hope Yen of The Associated Press; and by Ania Nussbaum of Bloomberg News.
