Key reads
- Merz’s absence from UN General Assembly is noted as criticism grows over Gaza stance
- Taoiseach and Tánaiste join world leaders for UN summit on Gaza
- Dark cloud hangs over UN headquarters as leaders gather for ‘World Cup of Diplomacy’
Takeaways from Trump’s speech at the UN:
- It was anti-climatic. There was no bombshell announcement; much of the speech was standard Trump fare. I can’t have been the only one wondering whether, having withdrawn from various UN initiatives, Trump might up the ante by threatening to withdraw from the UN itself There are two major conflicts fuelling a sense of crisis at the UN, Gaza and Ukraine. On these, there was nothing new: Trump repeated things he has said previously
- It was long. Speeches to the UN general assembly are supposed to be 15 minutes; this one was almost an hour
- It was comedically overshadowed by a malfunctioning escalator and teleprompter. A video has emerged of Trump and First Lady Melania Trump being stuck on an escalator on the way to the speech. It suddenly halted when they stepped on to it. The failed teleprompter had a useful result however. It was easy to see where Trump was speaking off the cuff, and where he was reading prepared remarks – revealing what was deliberate US policy
- What was that policy? To advocate for anti-immigration views and undermine efforts to combat climate change, particularly renewable energy
- Trump was particularly focused on Europe. He mentioned Europe repeatedly, particularly on immigration and climate change
- Sadiq Khan was mentioned yet again. The London mayor seems to loom large in the mind of Trump. The US president made baseless claims associating Khan, a Muslim and common-or-garden Labour politician, with sharia Law. A spokesman for Khan has declined to “dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response.”
What did Trump say about Gaza?
Speaking immediately before Trump, Brazil’s president Lula described events in Gaza as a genocide.
“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to stop it,” Trump told the assembly.
He reserved his criticism for Hamas, saying he was working for the release of all hostages taken during the October 7th attack on Israel.
“We want all 20 back. We don’t want two or four,” Trump said. He said some families had also asked him to secure the return of their loved one’s bodies.
Trump criticised the wave of countries that have recognised Palestine, including France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Portugal.
Such recognition was “a reward for these horrible trustees, including October 7th, even while they refuse to release the hostages” Trump told the assembly.
Trump seems to reject the concept of refugees:
One of the concepts to emerge in the wake of the second World War was that people who are forced to flee their countries because of war, persecution of violence have the right to seek safety elsewhere.
The idea became international law in the 1951 Geneva Convention, which set down the rights of refugees and the obligations countries have to protect them. One key principle is “non-refoulement”: prohibiting the returning of refugees to countries where they face danger.
In his address to the UN general assembly, US president Donald Trump appeared to reject the concept non-refoulement and even the idea of refugees in itself.
“In the United States, we reject the idea that mass numbers of people from foreign lands can be permitted to travel halfway around the world, trample our borders, violate our sovereignty, cause unmitigated crime and deplete our social safety net,” he said.
The UN supports refugees through the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). This includes food and shelter in emergency situations, sometimes distributed through prepaid cards.
Trump characterised support like this as follows: “the United Nations is funding an assault on western nations and their borders”.
“The UN is supporting people that are illegally coming into the United States, and then we have to get them out,” he said.
“The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them, and not finance them.”
Core of Trump speech is to attack immigration and green energy:
The central two points of Trump’s address to the UN general assembly have been to attack immigration and green energy, and to call on fellow leaders to reject both.
He accused national leaders, particularly in Europe, of “destroying” their countries by allowing “uncontrolled” immigration.
“Your countries are going to hell,” he told them.
He went on to say that green energy is a “scam” and that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
“I’ve been right about everything, and I’m telling you if you don’t get away from the green energy scam your country is going to fail,” he said.
Scientific evidence overwhelming shows that climate change is accelerating, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, causing damaging extreme weather events and threatening the systems that support life on earth.
Trump concluded by addressing leaders in the hall directly, telling them “you need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you are going to be great again”.
These two points on immigration and climate change were the central plank of his pre-prepared remarks.
Lack of quick victory in Ukraine making Russia “look bad”, Trump says:
Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine is making the invading country look bad, US president Donald Trump has told the UN General Assembly.
“Of the seven wars that I’ve stopped I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with Putin which has always been a good one,” Trump said.
“Everyone thought that Russia would win this war in three days but it didn’t work out that way. It was supposed to be a quick little skirmish. It’s not making Russia look good, it’s making them look bad.”
Trump calls on European countries to stop buying Russian energy:
Trump has used the UN podium to repeat a call that all European countries stop all purchases of Russian energy.
Hungary and Slovakia still buy Russian oil, which is piped to them through the Druzbha pipeline, and Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline.
They have insisted they cannot do without Russian energy, saying ending the supply would increase prices for their people and endanger national security.
“They’re funding the war against themselves. Whoever heard of that one,” Trump told the assembly.
He would be discussing it with European leaders today, he added.
“Europe has to step it up, they can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while fighting Russia. It’s embarrassing to them,” he continued.
“They have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia.”
“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asks UN:
US president Donald Trump has claimed to have personally ended seven wars since he began his current term in office. “They said they were unendable,” he says.
“It’s too bad I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them ... I never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help,” Trump said.
He accused the UN of merely sending a “strongly worded letter” instead of taking action.
“I was too busy working to save millions of lives, but later I realised the United Nations wasn’t there for us,” he continued.
“What is the purpose of the United Nations? the UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it ... but it’s not coming even close to meeting that potential.”
Trump complains that he was not hired to renovate UN building:
US president Donald Trump has recalled that he was not awarded a contract to renovate the UN headquarters in New York, saying he had promised to use mahogany and marble.
“They decided to go in another direction which was more expensive at the time,” he remembers. “Frankly, looking at the building and getting stuck on the escalator they still haven’t finished the job ... many things in the United Nations are happening just like that but on a much bigger scale, sad to see.”
Donald Trump takes the podium:
The address of US president Donald Trump has been nervously anticipated given his combative approach to the UN and the post-WW2 international order.
He has diffused some of that tension by making the assembly laugh at the outset of his speech, remarking that the teleprompter is not working. “Whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” he says. It’s the first laugh yet.
Reading from notes, Trump has started into what so far seems to be a stock speech, lauding his record so far in office on the economy, crime, and immigration.
Simon Harris said UN reform “badly needed”:
Our man in New York Keith Duggan has been among the journalists doorstepping leaders as they arrive for the UN debate.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has called for UN reform.
“I think reforms at the UN are badly needed and not wishing to be pessimistic, I have been present for many conversations about UN reform and its often been a lot of talk without an ability to follow through,” Harris told reporters.
“I don’t say that to be critical of the United Nations. But the huge challenge I am hearing here is the very significant liquidity challenge that parts of the UN faces and trying to reform when your budgets are reduced and there is greater conflict than any time since the Cold War makes it an even greater challenge.”
International law is being buried under the rubble of Gaza, Lula says:
Brazil’s Lula is not the first speaker to suggest that impunity for breaches of international law is highly damaging to the project of upholding such principles.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing justifies the ongoing genocide in Gaza. There under tonnes of rubble are buried tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children,” Lula has told the assembly.
“There we see that international law and the myth of ethical exceptionalism of the West are also buried there.”
Brazil’s Lula notes conviction of predecessor for plotting coup:
According to a tradition going back to 1955, Brazil always speaks first at the UN General Assembly. The host comes next – the US – meaning that two ideological foes are speaking back to back.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began his speech by regretting international backsliding on international law. He then moved on to note the conviction this month of his right-wing predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, for plotting a military coup.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices convicted the former president of trying to cling to power after losing the 2022 election to Lula, and sentenced him to 27 years in jail. He is also banned from running for office until 2060. Bolsonaro has called the trial a “witch hunt” aimed at preventing him from contesting the 2026 election.
“Before the eyes of the world, Brazil sent a message to all aspiring autocrats and those who support them: our democracy, our sovereignty are non-negotiable,” Lula told the assembly.
Does the UN still matter?
“We gather to prove that this institution matters,” the president of the United Nations General Assembly Annalena Baerbock has told the session.
This is the 80th time the general assembly has met, and it is a “make it or break it moment, politically, financially” for the UN, Baerbock continues.
It’s hard not to think as she is speaking the things that contributed to the collapse of the League of Nations, the predecessor to the UN, in the 1930s. It lost its authority because powerful nations ignored it, and invaded other countries.
The open flouting of international law by states such as Russia and Israel is a major challenge to the UN, as is the hostile approach of the Trump administration, which has withdrawn from Unesco, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN-brokered Paris Agreement to curb climate change.
The world currently faces challenges that can only be faced collectively, Baerbock says, like climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We work together or we suffer alone.”
Applause as Guterres calls on Israel to heed international court:
The first applause of the session has come as António Guterres calls on Israel to implement measures ordered by the International Court of Justice in regard to Gaza.
He called for an immediate permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages by Hamas, and immediate access for humanitarian aid.
Since the ICJ ruled there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to prevent this, “a famine has been declared and the killing has intensified,” he told the assembly.
“The measures stipulated by the ICJ must be implemented fully and immediately,” he said. “Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people and the systematic destruction of Gaza.”
He also condemned the situation in Ukraine, where “relentless violence continues to kill civilians”.
UN secretary general António Guterres says principles of UN “under siege”:
The session is now under way, presided over by former German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock.
In an opening speech, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that the principles of the UN are “under siege”. He recalled that the UN was created by those who had witnessed the Nazi death camps, to prevent a repeat of second World War. There is now a choice between “a world of might makes right, or a world of rights for all”.
The ability of the UN to do its work is being cut out from under it, Guterres said. The United States has cut $1 billion in funding from the UN under Trump, causing a budgetary crisis.
“International co-operation is not naivety, it is hard headed pragmatism,” Guterres told the assembly. “The choices we make are not part of an ideological debate, they are life and death for millions.”
Welcome to The Irish Times live blog of the United Nations General Assembly in New York as world leaders gather to address crises from Gaza to Ukraine.
US president Donald Trump is due to be one of the first speakers, at roughly 14:50 Irish time.
I’m Naomi O’Leary and I’ll be with you for the next few hours.
