Categories
Amazon says it will provide secure cloud computing to NATO.
U.N. Updates: As Trump Threatens Iran, Other Leaders Warn of Deep Divisions
President Trump said he must decide whether to make a deal or “annihilate” Iran, in a gathering where world leaders typically focus on declarations of global harmony.
Published Sept. 22, 2026Updated Sept. 23, 2026, 2:13 p.m. ETFarnaz FassihiZolan Kanno-YoungsDavid E. Sanger and Mark Landler
Here’s the latest.
As President Trump spoke of a stark choice between rebuilding Iran and annihilating it on Tuesday, other world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly warned of the dangers posed by division and unilateral action, underscoring the deep divide between the visions of the president and his counterparts around the globe.
Mr. Trump used his address near the start of the day to defend the war he launched alongside Israel in February, even as allies have begun to openly question whether the United States remains a credible partner.
In hours of speeches, a parade of world leaders largely avoided criticizing Mr. Trump and the military operations he ordered against Iran and Venezuela since they gathered last year.
Instead, there were oblique references — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil indirectly rebuffed U.S. criticism over organized crime and emphasized the right to self determination of the Venezuelan people — and broad calls for cooperation. In remarks that seemed aimed at both the United States and Russia, President Emmanuel Macron of France warned against a world characterized by the “law of the jungle.”
Mr. Trump, the second world leader to speak at the gathering, used his remarks to celebrate his military operation in Venezuela this year, when the United States expanded access and control over that country’s vast oil reserves. But he saved his strongest words for Iran, raising the prospect of driving it “into hell with no chance of survival” from a podium where world leaders typically champion peace and global harmony.
“I have a big decision to make,” he said. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran is scheduled to address the gathering on Wednesday, and his remarks will be closely watched. Iran’s armed forces, in a statement carried by state media, criticized Mr. Trump’s remarks as an “exploitation of the U.N.’s podium to legitimize aggression, insecurity and global banditry.”
Mr. Trump, in remarks rife with falsehoods and exaggerations, also claimed credit for ending the war in Gaza, despite a plan to disarm Hamas and withdraw Israeli troops stalling for months; humanitarian conditions there remain dire.
Several speakers were direct in their criticism of Israel. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, condemned the country as having “a genocidal mind-set,” and Israel’s delegates left the assembly hall during his remarks. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, later called the situation in Gaza “a genocide in every sense of the word.”
The multiday General Assembly sessions will examine a wide variety of topics, including climate change, threats posed by A.I., the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and a possible two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians.
Here’s what else to expect:
Notable speeches: Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain was set to speak later in the day. In addition to Iran’s president, Mr. Pezeshkian, Wednesday’s speakers are scheduled to include President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
Ukraine: During a meeting with Mr. Zelensky on the sidelines of the assembly, Mr. Trump said he believed President Vladimir Putin of Russia was “willing to meet” to end the full-scale war between the two countries that began more than four years ago. Mr. Zelensky said he hoped Ukraine’s war with Russia would end “before winter” and that the Trump administration would help the country end the conflict.
Middle East: France, Britain and Canada were scheduled to host a meeting on a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians, a smaller, more low-key follow-up on last year’s spotlight conference on the issue.
U.N. leadership search: António Guterres, delivering his final address to the assembled world leaders as U.N. secretary general, opened the gathering by warning that “the fault lines in our world are widening.” The global body is searching for its next leader, who will take the helm in January. Seven candidates are vying for the role, but no clear front-runner has emerged, diplomats said.
Absent leaders: A number of world leaders are absent from the General Assembly. One is Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who will travel to Washington later this week to see Mr. Trump, and their meeting is expected to overshadow the speeches at the Assembly. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, are not attending.
David E. SangerJeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli
Trump once vowed to ‘own’ Greenland. He settled for something much less.
In January, President Trump was clear about his need to take over all of Greenland, and to make it American territory. “That’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success,” he said. “Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base.”
On Tuesday, he signed a document that paves the way to expanding the U.S. military presence on the island, opening new bases. But it explicitly stops short of conveying any territory to the United States. And no one — especially Denmark, which governs the vast but mostly empty space — wanted to emphasize that point, for fear that Mr. Trump might renounce the agreement he had just hailed as “tremendous for Europe and for the United States.”
For Mr. Trump, it was a major retreat. He first raised the possibility of buying Greenland during his first term and never let go of the idea. Even before he was inaugurated, he was making a national security case for making the territory part of the United States, acutely aware that, if he could get it, it would be an acquisition on the scale of President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase.
And few issues did more to galvanize European allies against the Trump administration, especially once they feared that he might make a military move against a NATO ally. There is no evidence he ever seriously considered that step. But that did nothing to alleviate the fears.
Diplomats involved in the process of drafting the 10-page agreement released on Tuesday said they spent months on the language — and then waited for what they hoped would be the right moment to present it to Mr. Trump. And even then they were nervous, acutely aware that after the United States signed an agreement on nuclear energy with Saudi Arabia over the summer, Mr. Trump announced, the next day, that he was changing key terms.
The diplomats spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Whether Mr. Trump has permanently dropped his insistence on owning Greenland is anyone’s guess, the diplomats concede. But their hope was to give him enough to boast about, even if many of the provisions were implicit in the 1951 agreement and its successors.
Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, described the final document, which was released on Tuesday, as only a moderate improvement for the United States, achieved at considerable political cost.
“It is an extraordinarily high price to pay for relatively limited changes,” he said, maintaining that Mr. Trump’s threats did lasting damage to relations with Denmark, Greenland and Europe.
The 1951 accord essentially gave the United States the right to build bases across Greenland, and at the height of the Cold War there were more than a dozen. At one point there was even a plan for an under-the-ice nuclear weapons base. But expense, and then the end of the Cold War, led to the abandonment of many of the facilities. Vice President JD Vance visited one of the remaining ones, Pituffik Space Base, in March 2025, declaring that the United States had to “wake up” to China’s and Russia’s designs on the island.
“We can’t just bury our head in the sand,” he said, “or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow.”
Mr. Vance’s visit touched off even more concern about American intentions. But in recent days, the reactions to the accord have been broadly positive in Denmark and Greenland.
For Naaja Nathanielsen, a member of the Danish Parliament and part of Greenland’s left-leaning pro-independent party, the most significant part of the agreement is the signature page: For the first time, Greenland, alongside Denmark, is a direct signatory of a legally binding international agreement. That was a huge win for Greenland’s population, which has always felt marginalized, constantly debating whether Denmark had its best interests in mind.
“This is the first time we have actually had a seat at the table,” Ms. Nathanielsen said. “That is something we are proud of,” one that she thinks will set a precedent for greater Greenlandic autonomy in foreign policy.
One key change in the new document is an explicit description of how Greenland would be bound by the terms of the accord even if it became independent of Denmark.
“In case Greenland exercises its right to self-determination to become independent, the government of the Kingdom of Denmark and the government of Greenland shall together ensure that the independent Greenlandic state will agree to remain in NATO,” the document says.
The document specified two areas where the American military wants to expand: Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig.
Narsarsuaq, in southern Greenland, is an old base where the American military maintained a large airfield during World War II. The base closed decades ago.
Mestersvig, in eastern Greenland, is an area where the Americans never had a permanent presence but would allow American forces a strategic perch overlooking the waters between Greenland, Norway and Iceland. Mestersvig is sometimes used by the Danish military for its dog sled patrols, which Mr. Trump has ridiculed as inadequate.
Show moreAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSept. 22, 2026, 8:29 p.m. ETBy the end of his first General Assembly address, Burnham has outlined his vision of a Britain that will lead the world against some of its most formidable challenges. He told world leaders that the country will pioneer efforts to counter Russian information warfare in Europe, amid concerns of espionage and election interference by Moscow. He said Britain will foster cooperation between countries, including rivals, to ensure artificial intelligence is developed safely. And he presented Britain as a peacemaker that will stand up for Ukraine in its war with Russia. His talking points tie back to a line from the start of his speech: “Britain is back.”
Sept. 22, 2026, 8:27 p.m. ETPositioning himself as a world leader, Burnham said he was seeking “a single set of global principles and standards” for the continued development of artificial intelligence. The prime minister added he planned to put artificial intelligence “at the heart” of his agenda when Britain hosts the Group of 20 next year.
“Fundamental decisions on this technology are too important to be left to chance,” Burnham said. He said he viewed the technology as “key to economic growth” but warned it will also be “a source of disruption to the way we live and work.”
Sept. 22, 2026, 8:07 p.m. ETBurnham said “we continue to condemn Hamas, and stand with Israel” in the face of threats against Jewish people around the world. However, he added, “this does not justify the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.” He defended Britain’s decision to impose major sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying the policy “recognizes that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory is unlawful.”
Sept. 22, 2026, 7:57 p.m. ETCarney details his aim for ‘values-based realism’ in the world order.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada expanded on his vision for international cooperation on Tuesday, outlining how nations can safeguard their mutual interests following a “rupture” to the world order by the United States and China.
“This is, in many respects, a time that comes once or twice every century,” Mr. Carney said during a news conference at the United Nations in New York, where he was attending the General Assembly. “What comes ahead, it’s not wishful multilateralism, which defends only the status quo, nor a cold realpolitik that dismantles the status quo altogether.”
He added: “The alternative that Canada and many others are pursuing, is values-based realism, an approach that’s both principled and pragmatic.”
In a highly publicized address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January, Mr. Carney called on the world’s “middle powers” to band together to protect their interests from the decline of the “rules based order.” But he offered little detail what form that might take.
Until he was delayed by air traffic control disruptions on Monday, Mr. Carney had been scheduled to join leaders from the European Union and six other nations to launch an initiative he called “Partners for Multilateralism.”
“This is not a bloc or a bureaucracy,” he said in French on Tuesday. “It is a new forum that looks at universal institutions, practical coalitions and capacities that exist outside of governments in order to build trust and bring people together.”
He added: “The real choice is not between trying to preserve an international order established after the Second World War or abandoning it.”
He said that the plan acknowledges the impossibility of consensus among nations and suggested that alliances formed through the new group will be ad hoc and with changing memberships.
“Groups formed around problems rather than geography or size,” Mr. Carney said. “Not as an alternative to multilateralism, but as an instrument of it.”
Mr. Carney cited Canada’s work with France and Britain on a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, as well as Canada’s participation with other nations on preserving ocean environments as examples.
Such groups, Mr. Carney said, would bring their solutions to multilateral organizations, like the U.N., “to be strengthened, to be broadened and to be scaled.”
As he has suggested in the past, such a system demands that Canada and its traditional allies work pragmatically alongside nations with differing views.
“Put simply: we’re in a position where we need to pursue calibrated alliances, integrating deeply with those countries who share our values, remaining open-eyed with those who do not,” he said.
Mr. Carney’s remarks followed a similar message he delivered to the European Parliament where he called for a pact between Canada and the E.U. to help to secure sovereignty and independence for his country at a time of poor relations with the United States.
Mr. Carney will not address the U.N. General Assembly because of a scheduling conflict, but he is meeting with other leaders over several days in New York. Reflecting Mr. Carney’s rise on the world stage, he received more requests for meetings than his schedule could accommodate, said senior Canadian government officials.
Mr. Carney did not directly respond to questions about possibly meeting President Trump, saying: “I find that when you have 160 leaders come to New York that it’s most valuable to meet those who you don’t normally see.”
When asked about Mr. Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran, made in his address earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Carney replied in French: “There is a war underway, and he’s speaking the language of war.”
Show moreAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSept. 22, 2026, 7:56 p.m. ETBurnham said Britain is in a “unique position as an honest broker” to drive a new age of cooperation in global affairs. He argued that his country is a U.S. ally, has deep relationships with the European Union and works with China and India. “In a divided world, we have the ability to bring people together and we will,” he said, articulating an ambitious vision of British leadership. “We are going to step into that role.”
Andy Burnham, Britain’s new prime minister, has taken the podium. It’s a chance for him to raise his profile on the global stage.
Earlier today, Burnham had his first face-to-face meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the Assembly. It seemed to go well, with the U.S. president calling the British leader a “natural business person” whom he could work with.
Sept. 22, 2026, 7:42 p.m. ETJapan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, issued a stark warning about the changing world order, saying the “stable post-Cold War era is now a thing of the past.” She pitched her country as a force for stability and strength, ready to help on issues like artificial intelligence, climate change and nuclear disarmament.
“Japan feels a sense of responsibility to safeguard the ideals of the United Nations as our beacon of hope,” she said.
Takaichi, a defense hawk, notably did not mention China, which has been putting economic and military pressure on Japan. She has recently been seeking to de-escalate tensions with Beijing and seeking President Trump’s help in doing so.
She also expressed an openness to dialogue with North Korea, following recent calls by South Korea to ease sanctions on Pyongyang.
Reporting from New York
As Trump lobs threats against Iran, world leaders largely steer clear.
Standing on a podium often reserved for messages of peace, President Trump on Tuesday brought his escalating threats against Iran directly before world leaders. They largely did not respond.
Mr. Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that he was deciding whether to “annihilate” Iran if the war — launched by the United States and Israel — drags on without a peace deal. But other world leaders said little about a conflict that has widely disrupted trade, driven up fuel prices and prompted Iranian attacks on other countries in the Middle East.
Those who did urged peace, not escalation.
Among them was Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, which helped broker a June cease-fire between the United States and Iran that has fallen apart. He urged a return to negotiations to find a “lasting solution that ensures security and stability for the entire region, including Iran.”
“The opportunity for a peaceful diplomatic solution, which we believe is both possible and realistic, must not be missed,” he said.
The war has expanded to new fronts since Iran came under attack in February, with Iranian proxy forces repeatedly attacking military bases and ships across the region. Since the cease-fire between the United States and Iran broke down, there has been no clear off-ramp from the conflict.
The sides are locked in a showdown over the Strait of Hormuz that has suffocated global trade and led to sudden bursts of military activity.
As Mr. Trump’s ultimatum against Iran loomed over the gathering, the leaders of three countries affected by the conflict — Jordan, Qatar and Turkey, all U.S. allies — focused more on criticizing Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, caught in the middle as Iran strikes bases in his country used by the American military, did not criticize the United States for launching the war. But he did address its far-reaching consequences.
“If anyone had any doubt that conflict from our region stays there,” he said, “just look at the energy and grocery bills of ordinary families, from Mumbai to Minnesota.”
Sheikh Tamim, the Qatari emir, said the crisis was the result of “years of procrastination, managing crises with temporary fixes and unrealistic policies.” He said the region lacked safeguards for collective security.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that he wanted an end to “the climate of war.”
“I strongly underline that any dangerous attempt to spread these conflicts, these clashes, to neighboring regions serves no one’s interests,” he said.
President João Lourenço of Angola, a country in southern Africa that is removed from the conflict geographically, said wars in other parts of the world had caused “instability on our continent,” with “devastating effects on the most vulnerable countries.”
“Today we live in an environment of global anarchy in which the use of force prevails over the force of reason and law,” he said.
President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania called attacks by Iranian-backed militant groups on neighboring countries a threat to international peace.
In his remarks to the General Assembly, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron urged the body to stand against those who want a world ruled by the “law of the jungle.” But he did not name those he believed responsible for fueling conflicts.
“The question before us, in very simple terms, is whether we want to live in this state of nature, with a kind of return to the law of the jungle, or in a civilized international society,” Mr. Macron said.
Iran was quick to reject Mr. Trump’s ultimatum as an empty threat. Iran’s armed forces, in a statement carried by state media on Tuesday, called his address an “exploitation of the U.N.’s podium to legitimize aggression, insecurity and global banditry.”
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is slated to speak to the assembly on Wednesday.
Show moreAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSept. 22, 2026, 6:59 p.m. ETBritain’s new prime minister faces his first major gathering of world leaders.
For Andy Burnham, who became Britain’s prime minister in July, the United Nations General Assembly is a chance to raise his profile on the global stage.
In the weeks since taking office, Mr. Burnham has made one major foreign visit — to Ukraine, where he voiced support for President Volodymyr Zelensky, just as his three recent predecessors did.
Mr. Burnham said his time in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, had influenced his decision to be part of the General Assembly, suggesting that he would use his speech there to try to drum up increased support for Ukraine.
While in Kyiv, Mr. Burnham was chair of a meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing, countries that support the Ukrainians. He urged those nations to do more to protect Ukraine against Russian attacks, including by providing more of the U.S.-made Patriot missiles that Kyiv has been clamoring for, to intercept the ballistic missiles Russia fires at Ukrainian cities.
Mr. Burnham, who replaced the unpopular Keir Starmer as prime minister, has prioritized a domestic political agenda, promising to ease financial burdens on hard-pressed voters. But the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has raised energy costs and stoked inflationary pressures in the British economy.
Mr. Burnham’s visit to the United States raises the possibility that he could have his first face-to-face meeting with President Trump. On the phone, the two leaders appear to have a decent rapport. Mr. Starmer had also gotten along well with Mr. Trump until conflict surfaced over the initial U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, which Mr. Starmer, like other European leaders, did not support.
In general, Britain’s foreign policy is unlikely to change significantly under Mr. Burnham. He has retained Mr. Starmer’s influential and deeply experienced national security adviser, Jonathan Powell.
The one exception has been a hardening of policy toward Israel over its program expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
This month, Britain, along with other Western nations, announced new economic sanctions against products from the settlements, provoking an angry response from Israel. The tougher stance toward Israel, including over Gaza, is popular within Mr. Burnham’s governing Labour Party, which will hold its annual conference soon after the prime minister’s appearance at the General Assembly.
So while in New York, Mr. Burnham is unlikely to soften his stance on the Israeli government or its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Show moreSept. 22, 2026, 6:26 p.m. ETJapan’s leader aims to highlight her country’s push for a more pivotal global role.
Japan’s leader, Sanae Takaichi, plans to use her United Nations appearance on Tuesday to promote her country’s desire to play a more active global role in defense and economic matters.
Previewing her speech to the General Assembly on Monday to reporters in Tokyo, Ms. Takaichi said she would focus on issues like climate change, the rule of law and freedom of navigation in international waters.
Ms. Takaichi must strike a delicate balance. She is eager to champion the role of international institutions and to build ties with European nations, as well as Australia, Canada and other “middle powers.” But she also does not want to risk alienating President Trump, with whom she has built a warm relationship.
The Japanese leader met with Mr. Trump on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of the Assembly.
Japan depends on the United States for security. During her speech on Tuesday, Ms. Takaichi will also raise a longstanding concern for Japan: the fate of 17 citizens who Japan says North Korea abducted decades ago.
North Korea has acknowledged only that its agents abducted 13 Japanese people in the 1970s and ’80s. Five of them returned to Japan in 2002. North Korea has said the others died long ago.
Show moreAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSept. 22, 2026, 6:24 p.m. ETZolan Kanno-Youngs and David E. Sanger
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and David E. Sanger cover the White House and reported from the United Nations.
Trump lays out a winner-takes-all vision of U.S. power.
The podium of the United Nations was an unusual setting for the leader of a global superpower to threaten to “annihilate the Islamic republic” of Iran or to declare that, in another conflict, “to the victor belong the spoils.”
Yet that was exactly what President Trump did on Tuesday, in threatening Iran if it failed to make a deal to end a war that had stretched far longer than Mr. Trump anticipated, and justifying his claims on Venezuelan oil reserves after American forces deposed its leader.
Mr. Trump has long made clear that he has little use for the United Nations, one of the post-World War II institutions that he has dismissed as outdated and ineffective. But his speech at the annual opening of the General Assembly amounted to a pure American rejection of the concept behind the U.N.’s founding in 1945: to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
The global body’s charter, written largely by the United States, expressly prohibited members from threatening or using force against a country’s territorial integrity unless acting in self-defense, or with the U.N.’s authorization.
On Iran, Mr. Trump made it clear that he, and he alone, would decide whether to strike a deal with Tehran’s leaders or “annihilate the Islamic republic.”
It may have been largely a negotiating tactic. A little later in the morning, American officials quietly met with Iranians who were also in New York for the opening session, though it was unclear whether any progress was made or whether Mr. Trump himself would meet top Iranian officials.
But his threats were not limited to the war that has consumed his presidency for months since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran. He promised that Cuba’s government would fall, one way or the other. And if his “to the victor belong the spoils” line seemed drawn from the days of American gunboat diplomacy more than a century ago, that did not seem to bother the president. Mr. Trump has made it clear that he is willing to use the power of the U.S. military not only for the benefit of securing critical resources, like Venezuela’s huge oil reserves, but also to turn a profit.
Mr. Trump’s comments came at a moment when he appeared more isolated than ever from traditional allies, and when Americans were telling pollsters they overwhelmingly disapproved of his foreign policy. But none of that seemed to lead Mr. Trump to back away from the fiery threats that he has combined with military action in his second term.
Even by Mr. Trump’s standards, the speech seemed to disregard the foundational purpose of the U.N., an institution he has long derided as ineffective and unsuited to deal with the contemporary issues of the world.
It echoed a social media post earlier this year in which he threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization. But it was startling to hear such explicit threats from the podium of the United Nations. That seemed to be the president’s intent, as he celebrated taking actions that past presidents and the U.N. itself shied away from.
“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world?” Mr. Trump asked, before raising a far different prospect, with no apparent effort to differentiate between the country’s leadership and military and its civilians. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”
“Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?” Mr. Trump said from the General Assembly podium, where world leaders typically present themselves as champions of peace. He made no mention of his frustrations that a war he boasted would last only days or weeks had now stretched to just shy of seven months.
His speech, in short, seemed to embrace the core doctrine of his second term: that the United States would use a combination of overwhelming military and economic power to suit its own ends — and to bolster the national economy — rather than work through the painful, often slow diplomacy of deal-making and economic coercion. But he made no acknowledgment of the role of international bodies like the U.N., and seemed to suggest that they should simply line up behind the United States.
Later in the speech, he changed course, ticking off the list of conflicts he claimed he personally resolved, boasting that he saved millions of lives by intervening to prevent a war between Pakistan and India. And shortly after Mr. Trump threatened Iran with annihilation, his own aides met for three hours with Iranian officials. It was unclear what, if anything, was accomplished.
This celebration of power over principle built upon a belief that Mr. Trump talked about in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year, when he dismissed international law as a constraint on his actions. The only limit on his power, he said, was “my own morality, my own mind — it’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Venezuela was perhaps the most conspicuous example. He celebrated the swiftness with which Special Operations forces swept into Caracas, seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their bed, and delivered them to a detention center in Brooklyn, just a few miles from where Mr. Trump spoke.
Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, criticized Mr. Trump for promoting himself as both a president of peace and one that could wipe out a nation.
“Trump never misses a chance to humiliate himself in front of the world,” Mr. Kim said in a post on social media. “His war in Iran is a complete failure, and the American people are paying the price.”
And from the podium, other world leaders criticized Mr. Trump without mentioning his name. President Emmanuel Macron of France, a nation allied with the United States since the American Revolution, denounced a global retreat to the “law of the jungle.” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, the first world leader to speak on Tuesday, said that democracy was “once again under threat” and — without mentioning the U.S. operation against Mr. Maduro — insisted that the Venezuelan people had the right to self-determination. Mr. Trump has insisted that it is not the right time for an open election in the country.
Recent polling shows Americans are not on board with Mr. Trump’s approach. A CNN poll conducted last week showed that 29 percent of American adults approved of Mr. Trump’s handling of foreign affairs; 71 percent said they disapproved — reaching or exceeding levels of disapproval President George W. Bush faced in 2006, when the Iraq war was unraveling.
But to Mr. Trump, actions like seizing Venezuela’s leader and making claims on its oil were clear victories. “It was a war, but it’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made,” he said. “If necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States.”
Mr. Trump also described Cuba as a “failed state” that would soon fall. “We’ll not allow a haven for foreign adversaries to threaten America on our own doorstep,” Mr. Trump said, prompting Cuban officials to walk out of the General Assembly.
“The US government proves incapable of accepting that #Cuba is, and has the right to be, a fully independent and sovereign country,” Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s foreign minister, later said on social media. “Cuba is not a threat to the US nor to any country.”
Mr. Trump also celebrated his administration’s recent deal on Greenland. Earlier this year he threatened a total takeover of the huge island, which is believed to have large underground reserves of rare-earth minerals used for making batteries, electric vehicles and other high-tech products.
Yet the prospect of the U.S. seizing a semiautonomous territory spurred intense backlash from European leaders and nearly upended the Western alliance.
After reaching a deal with Denmark and Greenland over the territory, Mr. Trump told the gathered crowd he planned to build two new military bases on Greenland — something the United States could have done in previous decades under an existing treaty.
Mr. Trump’s speech was also a pivot from his past remarks to the U.N., which were spent insulting world leaders and scolding them on their own policies. “Your countries are going to hell,” Mr. Trump said from the podium last year.
But now faced with a war in Iran with little sign of ending soon that has fueled discontent among his own supporters in the United States, Mr. Trump shifted from lecturing the international body to effectively selling them on his own actions — which have proved to be deeply unpopular with many Americans and allies overseas.
“I hope the Europeans realize that Iran’s goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb,” Mr. Trump said in what amounted to a response to some of the world leaders that had criticized the war in Iran. “If they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death forever.”
The declaration that Iran was building missiles that could reach Europe didn’t square with his earlier boasting of obliterating Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Trump claimed credit for ending the war in Gaza, even as humanitarian conditions there remain dire and a plan for disarming Hamas and withdrawing Israeli troops has been stalled for months.
Mr. Trump also attacked the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel over the war in Gaza, as a “rogue institution.”
The I.C.C. was established in a 1998 treaty to investigate and try people for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. The court cannot enforce its rulings and relies on its member states to detain people who are accused of crimes.
Mr. Trump called on all members of the International Criminal Court to resign immediately.
While the U.N. has said climate change is an existential threat and propelled the issue of artificial intelligence to the top of its agenda, Mr. Trump once again took a different approach. Climate change was nothing more than a “hoax,” Mr. Trump said.
And the United States rejected “any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” artificial intelligence.
Mr. Trump did have one suggested change to the way the world approached A.I., one that made use of his penchant for branding.
“From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world’s will be changed to use the much more accurate term ‘super’ as opposed to ‘artificial,’” Mr. Trump said. “So it’s super intelligence.”
Mr. Trump then appealed for the leaders to refer to the rising technology as “S.I.” Whether they did, he said, would be a test of influence on the world stage — a question that has appeared to be consistently on the mind of the president.
“Let’s see if I have any power,” Mr. Trump said. “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. We’re going to find out pretty soon.”
Show moreSept. 22, 2026, 5:12 p.m. ETTrump says he supports banning U.S. diesel exports to bring down prices.
President Trump told reporters on Tuesday that his administration was reviewing a possible ban on U.S. exports of diesel to help lower fuel costs for farmers, truckers and businesses.
Some Republicans in Congress have been calling for a ban on exports as the cost of diesel has hit records because of global supply shortages that have resulted from the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the yearslong Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Iran war in particular, experts say, has driven much of the recent increase in diesel prices by reducing refining capacity.
Diesel fuel powers trains and trucks as well as large machinery and farm equipment. The record-high prices for diesel mean consumers ultimately pay more for food and other products. According to AAA motor club, the nationwide average diesel price was $6.53 a gallon on Tuesday, up from $3.69 a year ago.
“I’ve called for it,” Mr. Trump said about a ban on diesel exports. “I’ve called for it within my people. I’ve been talking about it.”
Rising energy costs have become an enormous political headache for the president as he tries to persuade voters to elect Republicans in November. Recent polls have shown many of the party’s candidates, including those running for what have long been regarded as safe Republican seats, in tight races with Democrats or independents.
Global demand for diesel fuel led to record-high exports from the United States this year, topping 1.6 million barrels a day in recent weeks, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Before the war started on Feb. 28, the country was exporting about 1.1 million barrels a day.
The E.I.A. said this month that it expected U.S. inventories of diesel to drop below 100 million barrels. Inventories reached a five-year low in 2025.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the country’s oil and natural gas industry, contends that a ban on U.S. exports of diesel would not bring relief to businesses and consumers. Instead, a ban would add to shortages by prompting U.S. refineries to reduce production, exacerbating the global shortage of the fuel.
The United States is the world’s largest supplier of diesel, providing about 20 percent of the eight million barrels of diesel traded by sea daily, the industry group said in a statement.
“Americans are hurting from rising diesel costs driven by an unprecedented disruption to global refining capacity,” Mike Sommers, president and chief executive at the petroleum institute, said in a statement. “We understand the administration is looking at every option to deliver relief, but restricting U.S. energy exports would only compound the problem.”
Jim Mitchell, director of oil trading analytics at the research firm Wood Mackenzie, said Mr. Trump could use emergency powers to at least temporarily ban diesel exports. But doing so might not result a big immediate reduction in the price of the fuel.
“There is no switch that can make diesel prices go down in a week,” Mr. Mitchell said.
Show moreAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSept. 22, 2026, 4:54 p.m. ETDamien Cave reported from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Tung Ngo from Hanoi, Vietnam.
Vietnam’s leader is likely to warn of threats to middle powers.
To Lam, Vietnam’s most powerful leader in decades, has been crisscrossing the globe for months seeking to reintroduce his country to the world — as a more confident middle power, a regional economic leader and a defender of free trade that is ready to play a bigger role.
His speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday is likely to return to these themes.
As he has in previous speeches, Mr. Lam will likely warn that peace and stability require a renewed focus on economic development without a “might makes right” approach.
Vietnam wants to preserve the system that it has come to rely on. The country joined the United Nations in 1977, emerging from decades of war with a shattered economy. Its rise to middle-income status since then has been a remarkable mix of pragmatic hard work, flexible diplomacy and fortunate geopolitics. Companies seeking alternatives to China have flooded in and built factories for exports of nearly everything.
But Mr. Lam arrives in New York with a particular set of vulnerabilities. In the first six months of this year, Vietnam surged ahead of China, Mexico and Taiwan to top the list of countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficit. And that model is threatened by the Trump administration’s trade investigations, which carry the potential for higher tariffs.
In an interview this week with Bloomberg, Mr. Lam tried to project optimism, insisting that a trade deal was “very close.” Vietnamese officials and business executives are expected to publicize a series of business deals during his visit, in an effort to show the Trump administration that Vietnam is eager to rebalance trade.
Hanoi has also been working for years to secure a high-level visit at the White House for Mr. Lam with Mr. Trump. Vietnamese officials are now just hoping for a brief interaction on the sidelines of the United Nations gathering.
Show moreSept. 22, 2026, 4:21 p.m. ETMacron calls on the U.N. to fight against the ‘law of the jungle.’
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly for the last time as France’s president, Emmanuel Macron urged the U.N. to act as a bulwark against those who would create a world ruled by the “law of the jungle.”
“Our duty, now more than ever, is to stand firmly alongside the United Nations to decide together precisely what is in our common interest,” he added.
Mr. Macron did not name the malefactors he believed responsible for this state of affairs. But his remarks could be interpreted as a critique of both Russia, with its invasion of Ukraine, and the United States, which, under President Trump, has threatened to invade Greenland and turn Canada into the 51st U.S. state.
Mr. Macron was also sharply critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying the plight of Palestinians in the strip was a “spectacle that shames us all.” Last year, France led a parade of countries at the U.N. that recognized the state of Palestine. On Tuesday, Mr. Macron said the world needed to do more to help Palestinians, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where he condemned settler violence.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement after the speech that Mr. Macron’s remarks had displayed a “grotesque absurdity.” Hamas, the statement said, “have murdered countless Israeli civilians” in the West Bank, and it cited the killing of an Israeli man on Sunday as an example.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli forces and civilians since the start of the war in Gaza, about 80 of them this year alone, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian office.
Palestinian armed groups have also carried out a smaller number of deadly attacks against Israeli civilians in the territory. More than 40 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank over the past three years, according to U.N. figures.
There was an elegiac tone to Mr. Macron’s remarks, as well as a sense of unfinished business. Next May, he will step down as France’s president after 10 years in office. He used his valedictory remarks to urge the U.N. to live up to its founding ideals, particularly the principle of multilateralism.
With less than a year left in his term and with the campaign season already heating up in France, Mr. Macron appears eager for a last turn on the global stage. He met with Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the General Assembly. And he is seeking a role for France in negotiating a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia. He also called for a “double moratorium” on strikes on energy sites by both countries.
Despite his more somber tone, Mr. Macron called on the world not to surrender to the “spirit of defeat.”
“We must rediscover the vitality of our organization, this multilateralism that is the defense of a common interest, of justice for all,” he said.
Pranav Baskar contributed reporting.
Show moreAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSept. 22, 2026, 4:11 p.m. ETRepresenting South Korea’s most open stance in decades towards reconciliation with the North, President Lee Jae Myung called for “an end to this decades-old war on the Korean peninsula” in his speech to the General Assembly. He laid out a vision for cooperation between the North and the South, beginning by reestablishing channels of communication and eventually collaborating on public health, disaster response and climate change.
In a recent interview, Lee had said he would break with decades of policy and encourage the United States to ease sanctions on Pyongyang in exchange for an agreement that it freeze its weapons programs.
Zelensky says he hopes the war with Russia would end ‘before winter,’ and that Trump would help him do it.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that he hoped Russia’s war in his country would end “before winter” and that the Trump administration would help Kyiv do it.
“I hope we will end this war, and President Trump will help us end this war,” Mr. Zelensky said during a meeting with Mr. Trump. “I think we need to do this as quick as possible — before winter,” he added. The U.S. president nodded and repeated his words with approval.
But that is an ambitious goal.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II, is nearly five years old. Each side is locked in an escalating spiral of airstrikes, and an effort by U.S. officials to restart talks between the governments in Kyiv and Moscow to avert what analysts say could be a devastating winter for Ukraine has not borne fruit.
Still, Mr. Trump appeared optimistic sitting next to the Ukrainian leader on the sidelines of the General Assembly. He told reporters he believed that Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s leader, would be willing to have a meeting with Mr. Zelensky.
Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin: “He’ll meet. He’s willing to meet. He wants to see the war end.” Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky have not met face to face in seven years.
Russia did not immediately respond to the remarks.
The meeting came after Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump had spoken by phone over the weekend. Mr. Zelensky has said that he planned to discuss “de-escalation proposals” with Mr. Trump during the gathering of world leaders in New York.
This month, Mr. Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met with officials in Ukraine, in their first trip to the country, a diplomatic tour aimed at reviving efforts to end the war. They had arrived from Moscow, where the envoys had spent hours with Mr. Putin.
But the Trump administration, consumed by the war with Iran, had allowed the peace process to enter such a deep freeze that the trip was just a preliminary step — talks about how to resume talks. And Mr. Zelensky had said it appeared that the war would continue at least into the winter.
Those meetings came at a moment when Russia and Ukraine have been waging an intensifying air war, at least in part to try to gain the upper hand in any settlement talks.
That was reflected in the delicate discussions around the American envoys’ recent trip. The United States had secured an agreement that Ukraine and Russia would suspend attacks on each other’s capitals while Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner were in the cities, according to officials familiar with the diplomatic effort.
Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
Show moreLoad new postsSept. 22, 2026, 11:30 a.m. ETU.S. intelligence and international security reporter
Amazon says it will provide secure cloud computing to NATO.
Amazon said on Tuesday that its cloud service for handling sensitive government documents was now available to all NATO countries, a development that should allow the alliance to work better together on some military planning.
In the United States, Amazon has an outsize role in handling classified cloud computing for American intelligence agencies and the U.S. military. Secure cloud facilities are a prerequisite for using complex technologies like artificial intelligence for intelligence analysis, military logistics and defense planning.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has long struggled with intelligence sharing, given the varying standards for securing information across the alliance. But pushing allies to be able to use a common commercial solution that has been approved by the alliance and its members should, over time, allow for faster information sharing and joint planning
The new initiative allows all allied countries to work with material at the NATO Restricted level, the alliance’s lowest level of classification.
The head of NATO’s Communication and Information Agency, Dylan Browne, said the development would speed the alliance’s ability to “adopt modern technologies while maintaining security.”
Military operational planning in the alliance is handled at a far higher level than restricted, secret and top secret. So cloud services will not be available for the most sensitive work immediately.
Still, Amazon said that with all 32 members approving it at the lowest level, it would be easier for countries to become accredited to handle more classified information on the cloud.
David Appel, a vice president at Amazon Web Services, said that NATO allies would have access to the same infrastructure that has been “driving innovation in the private sector.”
Show moreReporting from New YorkReporting from TokyoDamien Cave and Tung Ngo
Reporting from New York