Former President Barack Obama told a massive crowd at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Tuesday that we are living in “strange and uncertain times."

In one of his highest-profile speeches since leaving office, Obama did not mention President Trump by name, but his speech comes one day after his successor held a much-criticized summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Trump dismissed Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“The strange and uncertain times we are in — and they are strange, and they are uncertain — each day’s news cycles bringing more head spinning and disturbing headlines, I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective,” Obama said in the opening of his speech.

In a speech that was littered with tacit shots at Trump, Obama reflected on how far the world has come in the last century, saying it could offer a “road map for where we need to go next.”

“That was the world just 100 years ago. There are people alive today who were alive in that world. It is hard then to overstate the remarkable transformations that have taken place since that time,” he said.



Former Pres. Barack Obama says we are in "strange and uncertain times": "With each day's news cycles bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines, I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective" https://t.co/s4drXPlcRD pic.twitter.com/AWxnanNsNf — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 17, 2018



Obama has largely steered clear of criticizing Trump by name since he left the White House, but has taken occasional opportunities to critique the 45th president’s “America First” policies — many of which have been reversals of Obama’s accomplishments, such as the Paris climate pact and the Iran nuclear deal.

“We also have to recognize all the ways the international order has fallen short of its promise. In fact, it is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites to squarely address the shortcomings and contributions of this international order that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, a more dangerous, a more brutal way of doing business,” he said.

Obama took a sharper tone against Trump’s rhetoric, warning that “strong-man politics” are becoming more influential.

“A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear, and that kind of politics is now on the move. It’s on a move at a pace that would be seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I’m not being alarmist. I’m simply stating the facts. Look around, strong-man politics are ascendant suddenly … Those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning,” Obama said.

Near the end of his remarks, Obama targeted Trump’s misstatements. He noted, again without mentioned his successor by name, how when Trump is confronted about the misinformation he digs in deeper.

"Unfortunately, too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth. People just make stuff up. … We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they're caught in a lie and they just double down,” Obama said.

This is the former president’s first visit to Africa since his presidency. He visited Kenya, the birthplace of his late father, earlier this week.