Russia and China challenged the United States' global leadership in United Nations speeches peppered with bare-knuckled criticism of the Trump administration's hostility toward Iran, its "military hysteria" over North Korea, and its approach to the rest of the world.

The foreign ministers used the backdrop of President Donald Trump's first turn on the world stage to try to cast their countries as standard-bearers of a peaceful, democratic and reasoned approach to global affairs. And they used the opportunity to argue that globalization, technology and emerging markets are bumping the United States off its superpower pedestal.