(Image source from: x.com/WhiteHouse)
US President Donald Trump harshly criticized the United Nations on Tuesday during his first speech since returning to the White House, condemning it for not achieving peace and claiming that the organization promotes illegal immigration. In his comeback speech at the UN General Assembly, Trump accused the UN of creating a problem through migration that is hurting Western nations, which he said are "going to hell."
He also took the opportunity to attack actions aimed at fighting climate change, labeling worries about global warming as "the biggest scam ever played on the world." Trump questioned the purpose of the United Nations by asking, "What does the United Nations even do?" He stated, "All they seem to do is write a very strongly worded letter," adding that "empty words won’t end wars." The 79-year-old even grumbled about a broken escalator and a malfunctioning teleprompter at the UN’s New York office, an organization he has often criticized during his two terms as president.
"I got two things from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter," he noted. Highlighting what he claimed were his attempts to end seven conflicts, Trump focused on two that have seen no progress — the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the war in Gaza that followed Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. He described support from some of Washington's allies for a Palestinian state as a "reward" for Hamas's "horrific acts" and urged the group to free hostages to help achieve peace. Trump criticized European allies, along with China and India, for not stopping oil imports from Russia, while he remained somewhat cautious about criticizing Moscow, even as he mentioned that Washington is prepared to impose undisclosed sanctions. He strongly condemned immigration, attacking the UN for "financing an attack" on Western countries. "It's time to put an end to the failed open border policy," Trump declared. "Your nations are going to hell," he said, also criticizing London's Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is the first Muslim mayor of a major Western city.
Trump's second term has begun with a surge of nationalistic actions that reduce collaboration with other countries. He is pulling the United States out of international organizations like the World Health Organization and the UN climate agreement, has drastically cut US aid for development, and imposed sanctions on foreign judges whose decisions he believes undermine the US's authority. At the start of the yearly summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautioned that the reduction in aid from the United States was causing serious problems around the globe.
"What type of world are we going to choose? One based on force -- or one based on laws?" Guterres questioned. Regarding Ukraine, Trump will have his second meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky after his earlier discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15. That meeting helped Moscow regain some engagement in the West but did not lead to any solutions regarding Ukraine.
Though Trump claims he can quickly end the conflict, Russia has continued its intense assaults on Ukraine in the last month and has caused anxiety with drone and air activities in NATO countries like Poland, Estonia, and Romania. Last week, Trump remarked that Putin had "really let me down." Among the few individual meetings Trump will have is with Argentina's right-wing leader Javier Milei, who shares a similar ideology and for whom the United States is considering providing financial support.
Before his arrival in the UN area, which was filled with heavily armed police and agents and had many barricades and road closures, the US Secret Service announced they had stopped a plot related to communications. They mentioned that there was a weaponized group involving over 100,000 cellphone SIM cards capable of disrupting communication around the UN, and that "nation-state threat actors" were part of this threat.
