President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered a full-throated defense in the U.N. General Assembly of his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and confronted that nation’s sponsorship of terrorism.

Trump pointed to Iran’s role in war-torn Syria and the suffering it has caused millions of people.

“Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it — the corrupt dictatorship in Iran,” he said.

“Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nations.”

It is not just Syria, Trump said. He said Iran’s leaders have been allowed to plunder the nation’s resources and spread mayhem across the region.

“Iran’s neighbors have paid a heavy toll for [that country’s] agenda of aggression and expansion,” he said.

Pulling out of the “horrible 2015 Iran nuclear deal” has been one of Trump’s most decried foreign-policy decisions. That pact allowed Iran to recover an estimated $150 billion in assets that had been frozen in international banks since 1979 and to resume normal trade relations.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has concluded that Iran has continued to live up to its obligations under the treaty. But Trump focused on areas not covered by the pact. He said Iran has used its new resources to build nuclear-capable missiles, finance more terrorism abroad, and crack down on dissent at home.

“The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran’s leaders,” he said. “In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget grew nearly 40 percent.”

In some ways, the rhetoric was similar to the message Trump had for the world when he addressed the U.N. a year ago — that the United States would cooperate with foreign countries but not at the expense of its own interests.

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

In other ways, however, the contrast between Trump 2018 at the U.N. and Trump speaking in the same hall a year ago could not have been sharper. Last year, the president stunned observers with decidedly undiplomatic language toward North Korea, calling leader Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man.”

Much has changed — in language, at least — since Trump and Kim met face to face in Singapore last June.

“Since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago,” he said. “The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction. Nuclear testing has stopped. Some military facilities are already being dismantled. Our hostages have been released. And, as promised, the remains of our fallen heroes are being returned home, to lay at rest in American soil.”

The top of Trump’s speech sounded more like a domestic campaign rally, touting his administration’s accomplishments on the economy. His declaration that he had presided over more accomplishments that “almost any administration in the history of our country” drew chuckles from the foreign diplomats in the audience.

Trump deflected it. “Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK,” he said.

The president also addressed a number of other topics:

Trade. The president praised new trade deals with Mexico and South Korea, and said more are on the way.

He said the United States allowed “broken and bad trade deals” to balloon the country’s annual trade deficit to nearly $800 billion.

“For decades, the United States opened its economy — the largest, by far, on Earth — with few conditions,” he said. “We allowed foreign goods from all over the world to flow freely across our borders. Yet other countries did not grant us fair and reciprocal access to their markets in return.”

China. The president thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for his help in resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. But Trump made clear that he is not backing off his hard line on trade, which already includes $250 billion in tariffs on Chinese-made products.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the president said, America has lost a quarter of its steel jobs and 60,000 factories due to Chinese policies and actions.

“But those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse,” he said. “We will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting our citizens.”

The Middle East. Trump said his new approach to the region already has yielded stronger cooperation from Arab states on fighting terrorism. He noted his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

And Trump took a bow on the decimation of the Islamic State terrorist organization.

“The bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria,” he said.

Energy. Trump praised Poland for supporting a Baltic pipeline to bypass Russia and took a swipe at Germany.

“Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course,” he said. He also called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to lower prices.

Related: Trump’s ‘Big Stuff’ and ‘Little Stuff’ and How to Know the Difference

“OPEC, and OPEC nations, are as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don’t like it,” he said. “Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.”

U.N. reform. Trump defended the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council and to withhold recognition of the authority of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He also said his government would cap contributions to the U.N. peacekeeping budget to 25 percent of the total.

“We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy,” he said. “America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”