in its place was a strong tinge of resentment and self-pity.

Trump observed that the US was the world’s biggest aid donor, “but few give anything to us”.

“Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends,” he warned.

Trump read out a list of friends, and it was an unusual assortment, reflecting his personal relationships of the moment, rather than longstanding US alliances.

Kim Jong-un, the world’s most absolute dictator, was awarded the first shoutout, the latest instalment in his reward for the spectacular theatre he helped stage at the two leaders’ June summit in Singapore.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have also cultivated Trump and his immediate family since before he took office, were also lauded fortheir contributions to the aid funds for Yemen. Their role in the bombing of Yemeni cities and their human rights records at home went unremarked.

The only European ally to merit praise was Poland, whose president, Andrzej Duda, had this month visited Trump at the White House and showered him with praise, even offering to name a future US military base on Polish soil “Fort Trump”.

The central villain of Trump’s narrative was Iran and its government, which he depicted as the principal architect of the Syrian war. But even in the case of Tehran, the president left open a door to redemption, tweeting in the dawn hours before his UN appearance that he was sure that the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, was in fact “an absolutely lovely man”.

The clear