There were moments during US President Donald Trump's first speech before the United Nations General Assembly when it felt like he was back on a campaign debate stage, once again railing against rivals like "Little Marco", "Lyin' Ted" and "Crooked Hillary".

This time it was "Rocketman" Kim Jong-Un and the (as yet) un-nicknamed Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, that were seemingly just out of camera shot absorbing Mr Trump's rhetorical jabs.

This was Mr Trump's bullying, populist presidential campaign taken to a global stage.

The formula was all too familiar: we are facing dangers and decline, it's us versus them, and I'm on your side.

Instead of his campaign boasts about his poll numbers and personal wealth, standing in front of the top diplomats and some leaders from 193 member-nations, Mr Trump boasted about America's economic and military might (both of which, he says, have improved since his election).

Like so many speeches on the campaign trail, Mr Trump called for nationalism over globalism, and broadened his familiar jingoism to include other nations.

In World War II, Mr Trump said, patriotic Poles fought for Poland, the French for France and the "Brits" for Britain (conveniently overlooked of course were the Germans fighting for Germany, Italians for Italy and Japanese for Japan).

Just as Mr Trump thinks less government is good government at home, he now argues less American involvement in other countries' affairs is the best way forward.

America, Mr Trump says, will be guided by outcomes, not ideology and a policy of "principled realism".

In that, he could have been describing himself. And to a point, it seems to suggest a "live and let live" approach while providing an aspirational example to others — more of a restatement of president Ronald Reagan's "shining city on a hill" rather than George W Bush's post-9/11 global policeman.

Stranger things have happened

Mr Trump argues all nations should be guided by self-interest, and only act together when those interests overlap — such as in North Korea and Iran.

Former US Ambassador to the UN weighs in US President Donald Trump's speech was a combination of tweets and teleprompter with unfortunately too little of the latter and too much of Mr Trump in the former. And these kind of threats, fire and fury against North Korea are part of the Trumpian strategy. The major lack here is the fact that the threats are going to be hallow if they are not followed up. This is a little bit like two high school kids playing chicken in cars at the end of long straight stretch of road coming at each other, and who moves first is certainly going to pay a price. Whereas in the real world this pressure could be helpful if a little less bombastic, if coupled with some intelligent diplomacy so in fact we can use the pressure to shape an outcome, moving toward things like a test cessation. I don't see anything in the near future with the kind of bombast in the speech, I think it sets things back rather than moves them forward. My own view is that pressure will be helpful on North Korea, I'm not against that, but I think it is important to turn pressure with a vector in a useful direction rather than merely cranking it up and then to expect some surrender. — Analysis by Retired United States Ambassador to the UN, Thomas Pickering.



But don't expect Trump's America to waste any more time and money trying to remake other nations in its own image.

If there were any doubts about his appeal to populism, in his address, Mr Trump used the word "people" 50 times, and "sovereignty" 21.

Yet, revealingly, he said the word "democracy" only three times.

Interestingly, given the gravest threat to America's sovereignty and democracy in a long time came with Russia's interference in last year's US election, he mentioned America's great strategic rival just once — and that was to thank them for supporting stricter sanctions against North Korea.

Just as Mr Trump rewrote the rules of acceptable language during the campaign, it was kind of weird to hear the President describe another leader as "depraved", while threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea.

But then again, this is the same UN where Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev took off a shoe and banged it like a gavel, and Venezuala's Hugo Chavez said he could smell sulphur after President George W Bush had left.

Stranger things have indeed happened.

The language of Mr Trump's campaign rallies made an appearance at his UN debut. ( Reuters/AP )

Will Trump's bold gambles pay off?

Running for the presidency, Mr Trump often promised to repeal and replace "Obamacare", but has yet to do so, and he overturned another Obama policy to allow illegal immigrants who arrived as children to avoid deportation, only to cut a tentative deal with Democrats to let them stay.

During his 2016 campaign, Mr Trump threatened to walk away from NATO, but hasn't, tear up NAFTA, yet didn't, and walk away from the Paris climate agreement, which he did — but now says maybe he won't if he can renegotiate on more favourable terms (which every nation is already able to do under the terms of the treaty).

Mr Trump is now threatening to tear up the multi-national deal aimed at stopping Iran developing nuclear weapons. (Mr Trump must periodically re-certify the Iran agreement for congress).

At the UN General Assembly he indicated he probably would not, describing it as, "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the US has ever entered into" and "an embarrassment".

We'll find out in the weeks ahead what Mr Trump will do in reality.

Maybe after two years on the political stage and eight months in the presidency, we are getting a bit more used to the ways of President Donald Trump.

He talks big. He threatens dramatic action — sending Hillary Clinton to jail, destroying North Korea, tearing up treaties and agreements, scrapping alliances and overturning policies.

But that is simply his bold opening gambit, the start of the negotiation that often ends on more favourable terms as a result.

For Mr Trump, it's all still about the Art of the Deal.