By AFP

More by this Author

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday warned US President Donald Trump against "destroying" the United Nations.

"I believe that destroying something without having developed something new is extremely dangerous," Chancellor Merkel said at a regional election campaign event in Bavaria.

The veteran leader -- a close ally of President Trump's bugbear Barack Obama while he was president -- added that she believed multilateralism was the solution to many of the world's problems.

President Trump failed to see the possibility for win-win solutions, she said, instead seeing only one winner from any international negotiation.

Responsible nations

In his second appearance before the UN's annual gathering last week, President Trump told the General Assembly that he and his administration "reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism".

"Global governance" is a form of "coercion and domination" that "responsible nations must defend against," he charged.

Chancellor Merkel's opposing view to the US leader puts her in the same camp as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who warned before President Trump took the podium in New York Tuesday that "today, world order is increasingly chaotic".