President Donald Trump used his address to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) today to outline an expansive vision of American power and burnish his reputation as a global statesman.
“While others have talked, I have acted. While others have spoken of peace, I have made peace. While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them,” he said.
The president touted domestic and economic successes and justified his foreign policy decisions—chief among them, the Iran war that has further destabilized the Middle East and roiled global markets.
Trump said the war was necessary to neutralize the threat from Iran’s missile and drone stockpile; he also claimed that the United States had “obliterated” the country’s nuclear program with Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025. In perhaps the most headline-grabbing moment of the morning, Trump said he was facing a decision: whether to strike a deal with Tehran or “annihilate the Islamic Republic.”
At a Council roundtable about Trump’s speech this afternoon, CFR’s Steven Cook said that while it might be easy to dismiss Trump’s remarks as bluster, they could also have been a “setup for a possible negotiation.” Trump met with Gulf allies following his speech and told reporters his team had a “very good” meeting with Iranian representatives.
Like last year, Trump cast himself as a peace broker. It was his “honor to settle eight wars,” he said (though the status of some of those conflicts, and Trump’s role, can be disputed). The president predicted that a peace deal with Iran could follow November’s U.S. midterms and suggested that a Russia-Ukraine settlement was also in the offing.
Yet, for CFR’s Stephen Sestanovich, a significant gap in Trump’s speech was the Russia-Ukraine war, because the president declined to address the “preeminent issue” of de-escalation. This might suggest the administration “doesn’t really know how to advance this issue, or how to put pressure on the parties with public statements that try to hem them in,” Sestanovich told the CFR roundtable.
Later in his speech, Trump turned his attention to the Western Hemisphere. He highlighted the U.S. operation to oust former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, lauded expanded U.S. access to Caracas’ oil reserves, and said that freedom would be “coming to Cuba,” which he called an “absolutely failed state.”
His remarks exemplified “the Donroe Doctrine—might over right, military force over law, and U.S. regional dominance,” CFR’s Will Freeman told the Daily Brief.
Trump’s remarks also celebrated a new security deal with Greenland and Denmark—which he signed shortly after his address—that is poised to bolster the U.S. military presence on the territory. Trump had repeatedly threatened to seize the island.
CFR’s Liana Fix told the Daily Brief the Greenland deal is “very significant for the transatlantic relationship because it hopefully puts to rest the greatest source of friction between Europe and the United States so far.” Europe viewed Trump’s aspirations for Greenland as a breach of trust, and if the issue returns to the agenda, it could become a “make it or break it” point in the transatlantic partnership, Fix said.
Trump—who has frequently criticized multilateral institutions—also disparaged UN bodies such as the International Maritime Organization, and called on members of the International Criminal Court to resign from the “rogue institution” in his speech.
CFR’s David Scheffer told the Daily Brief afterward that Trump’s words “predictably trampled over international law, the law of war, and international organizations—all features of a global system that many other nations continue to press forward to uphold.”
The main issue, Scheffer said, is whether Trump’s pronouncements ultimately serve to “strengthen or undermine American leadership among UN member states.”
The Daily Brief will continue bringing you analysis of the latest news from UNGA throughout this week.
