Watched by the world, President Donald Trump returned to the United Nations on Tuesday to deliver a wide-ranging address on his second-term foreign policy achievements and lament that “globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order,” according to the White House.
World leaders are listening closely to his remarks at the U.N. General Assembly as Trump has already moved quickly to diminish U.S. support for the world body in his first eight months in office. After his latest inauguration, he issued a first-day executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization. That was followed by his move to end U.S. participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council, and ordering up a review of U.S. membership in hundreds of intergovernmental organizations aimed at determining whether they align with the priorities of his “America First” agenda.
Global leaders are being tested by intractable wars in Gaza,Ukraine and Sudan, uncertainty about the economic and social impact of emerging artificial intelligence technology, and anxiety about Trump’s antipathy for the global body.
Here’s the latest:
Trump warns Europe immigration is ‘destroying your heritage’
Trump called immigration and policies confronting climate change a “double-tailed monster” that’s ruining Europe. His rhetoric was especially harsh on what he called “the unmitigated immigration disaster.”
Here’s what he said: “If you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before, that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail. I’m the president of the United States, but I worry about Europe. I love Europe, I love the people of Europe. And I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration, that double-tailed monster that destroys everything in its wake.”
Then he directly addressed European leaders: “You’re doing it because you want to be nice. You want to be politically correct, and you’re destroying your heritage.”
The president scoffed at past predictions on climate change
Trump urged European countries to abandon green energy initiatives, scoffing that, in decades past, some experts predicted that by the year 2000 “climate change will cause a global catastrophe.”
He said scientists predicted some nations might be “wiped off the map” by now, but insisted that’s “not happening.”
Actually, climate change has indeed triggered rising sea levels and intensifying storms that have caused small island nations to shrink. Such phenomenon has also cost enormous sums of money for disaster response, cleanup and rebuilding in the U.S. and around the world.
Nonetheless, Trump insisted it was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world in my opinion.”
He said “all of these predictions were wrong” and “made by stupid people,” adding, “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
Trump invites world leaders to have dinner with him in a ‘totally safe’ Washington, DC
Trump shifted to talking about crime overall and specifically his crackdown in the U.S. capital, asserting that the city is “a totally safe city” after he flooded the streets with National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers.
“I welcome you to come,” Trump said. “In fact, we’ll have dinner together at a local restaurant and we’ll be able to walk. We don’t have to go by an armored plated vehicle.”
Trump went to dinner earlier this month at a seafood restaurant a few blocks from the White House to show it was safe even for him to venture out.
He rode over in his armored limousine.
Trump points to US boat bombing and warns drug traffickers of more
Trump is unapologetic about authorizing the bombing of two boats U.S. officials said were carrying drugs, despite bipartisan criticism that the U.S. military actions violated the law.
“Let’s put it this way: People don’t like to take big loads of drugs in boats anymore,” he said, promising more attacks if he deems it necessary.
“Please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he said after the two attacks that U.S. officials said killed 14 people.
Many Democrats and some Republicans have questioned Trump’s policy as a potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.
Trump lectures the world on immigration policy
“It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. I can tell you, I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” Trump proclaimed.
It was a lot of bravado on the world stage at the United Nations General Assembly — even for a leader who’s built his political career on public boasts.
Trump has launched a crackdown along the U.S.-Mexico border and pushed hardline domestic immigration policies.
“Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border — and removing illegal aliens from the United States — they simply stopped coming,” he said.
The president called his efforts a “humanitarian act,” arguing that it saved people who might have otherwise died trying to cross the U.S. border illegally.
Trump accuses the UN of ‘funding an assault’ on Western countries’ borders
Trump said the best example is “the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration.”
He said the U.N. last year budgeted several hundred million dollars to support more than half a million migrants entering the U.S.
“Think of that,” Trump said. “The U.N. is supporting people that are illegally coming into the United States, and we have to get them out.”
The president, who’s enforcing an immigration crackdown in the U.S., said what the U.N. is doing is “totally unacceptable.”
“The U.N. is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them,” said Trump.
Trump threatens Russia sanctions but says Europe must join in
Trump threatened to hit Russia with “a very strong round of powerful tariffs” if Putin doesn’t come to the table to end its war in Ukraine.
He claimed that would “stop the bloodshed .. very quickly” but also suggested fighting will not end as long as China and European nations continue buying Russian energy.
“They’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one?” Trump said.
Trump tells Hamas to release all hostages now
Trump demanded on Tuesday that Hamas immediately release all hostages living and dead that it’s holding in Gaza, saying the time for partial releases is over.
Speaking to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, Trump also criticized several European nations, including U.S. allies, for recognizing a Palestinian state, which he called a reward to Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel that sparked the current conflict.
“As if to encourage continued conflict, some in this body seek to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state,” Trump said. “This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7th. But instead of giving in to Hamas as ransom demands, those who want peace should be united with one message: release the hostages now.”
“Just release the hostages now.”
Trump says Russia-Ukraine war should have been a ‘quick little skirmish’
Trump says the Russia-Ukraine war should have been a ‘quick little skirmish,’ with Russia prevailing in a matter of days. Instead, it’s a become a years-long war.
The president repeated his 2024 campaign talking point that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine never would have happened had he been president from 2021-2025. At the same time, Trump expressed surprise he hasn’t been able to negotiate a peace deal after insisting throughout the campaign that he’d end the war quickly, if not on “Day One.”
“I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with President Putin, which had always been a good one,” Trump mused.
Trump describes US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites
Trump said that after he returned to office, he sent Iran’s supreme leader a letter pledging “full cooperation” in exchange for Iran suspending its nuclear program.
“The regime’s answer was to continue their constant threats to their neighbors and U.S. interests throughout the region, and some great countries that are right nearby,” he said in the speech.
The president declared that many of Iran’s former military commanders “are no longer with us” as a result.
And he described Operation Midnight Hammer, a recent operation in which U.S. military aircraft bombed Iran’s key nuclear facilities.
Trump slams the UN’s escalator and teleprompter while saying UN ignores his peace-promoting efforts
The president used his speech to boast about his efforts to calm conflicts around the world, but said the U.N. has failed to help him.
Listing efforts to ease conflicts in several countries — inflating his role in some cases and the overall number of areas where he intervened in others, Trump said, “It’s too bad I had to do those things instead of the United Nations doing them.”
“Sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help,” Trump said.
He also dismissively noted that the “two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”
Trump said he could deliver his speech without notes without a teleprompter, but clearly was reading from a script.
Trump blasts UN as being filled with ‘empty words’ and not helping end wars
Standing in front of top U.N. officials, before more than 150 world leaders, Trump blasted the international organization. He said they didn’t reach out to him on the various wars he says he has brought to a conclusion.
“I’ve always said the U.N. has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential,” Trump said. “For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter. It’s empty words and empty words don’t solve war.”
Trump keeps mentioning Biden at UN General Assembly
At least twice in the opening minutes of his U.N. speech, Trump has taken swipes at his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
It continues Trump’s tactic of bragging on the U.S. performance compared both to the Democratic administration and the rest of the world. Trump has mostly used general superlatives rather than verifiable facts to make such claims.
It also stands out for a head of state speaking at the U.N. to inject their own domestic politics into the international discourse.
Trump brags on the US as the ‘hottest country’ in front of the rest of the world
Trump wasted little time telling representatives of countries across the world that the U.S. is “the hottest country anywhere in the world, and there is no other country even close.”
He added later that the U.S. is “the best country on Earth to do business” and claimed the economy now is “bigger and even better” than during his first term, which he described as “the greatest … in the history of the world.”
And he claimed the U.S. is “respected again” like never before.
That kind of national bragging is generally frowned upon in diplomatic settings, including at the United Nations. Trump took the same approach in his remarks recently during a state visit to the United Kingdom.
Trump opens UN General Assembly address with a joke about the non-working teleprompter
Trump said he didn’t mind speaking without a teleprompter because “that way, you speak more from the heart.”
He joked that whoever is running the teleprompter “is in big trouble.”
