President Donald Trump will call on allies to push back against North Korea, while promoting peace, prosperity, sovereignty, and accountability when he speaks for the first time before the United Nations General Assembly, White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway said Monday.
"North Korea is not a distinctly American problem," Conway told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "It is the world's challenge now. The president will call upon our allies and others to come together to push back against a nuclear-capable North Korea."
The Iran nuclear deal, sanctioned by the United Nations, is also on Trump's mind, as he's been speaking on that issue since he was a candidate.
Trump also will promote prosperity, said Conway, because that is "everyone's business, to make sure that our sovereign nations pursue economic prosperity for its citizenry the way that they see fit."
The president has always called for a "better balance, a better deal and trade deals for this country," she continued. "He is putting American workers and American companies and American employers and American interests first."
Trump always will come to a bargaining table in good faith, said Conway, but he will also push for deals that benefit Americans more.
When it comes to sovereignty, Trump will emphasize the need for the United States to be a sovereign nation with physical borders.
Trump, meanwhile, will be speaking before the all the assembled nations at the UN, but he has been engaging China "almost from day one," said Conway.
"He has established a much better relationship with President Xi [Jinping]," said Conway. "But at the same time, those diplomatic channels are not worked. Obviously the economic sanctions will. North Korea sanctioned its own people. We all know that."
Trump is open to UN reform, she continued, and with its 15-0 vote on sanctions, the UN's Security Council did work well in times of crisis.
"The UN should be very responsive to its member states," said Conway. "The member states also should be responsive. There are some big things that can be worked on together. I think that's the president's point. Is he going there? He is going there. The best time to reform a body and organization is from doing it from the inside."
Meanwhile, domestically, Conway said the Trump administration has been told that the Senate is close to 50 votes on a healthcare reform measure proposed by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, and that the ongoing legal issues faced by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ have changed "the mathematical calculus in the Senate."
"This is important," she said. "This president wants to deliver coverage for those 29 million measures who don't have it, who were lied to about keeping their plan and keeping their doctor and who have been left out of the process."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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