Updated September 22, 2026 at 1:29 PM CDT
President Trump flaunted U.S. power and unilateral global actions during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, claiming the U.S. acted while other world leaders hesitated.
In his speech, Trump painted himself as a peacemaker, highlighting peace deals he's announced around the world while defending his Iran policy.
"I hope the Europeans realize that Iran's goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this conventional ballistic missile shield; if they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death forever, knowing that any attempt to stop them would face an arsenal of nuclear annihilation," Trump said.
Trump said he faces a decision on Iran: make a deal with the U.S. or "annihilate the Islamic republic."
The president said later in the day that U.S. officials had met with Iranians for three hours.
Speaking before the U.N., Trump also touted the invasion of Venezuela as a win for the U.S. when it came to claiming larger control of the country's oil resources.
"When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60% of the oil in the world. So it's perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it's perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils. You've all heard that," he said.
"Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, and if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States," he added.
Trump's statement contradicts decades of U.S. rhetoric to not explicitly connect foreign intervention with the acquisition of resources. It also amounts to a stark contrast from the principles of the United Nations, the body that he was addressing.
He also called on all members of the International Criminal Court to resign immediately, calling it a "rogue institution." The international body attempts to exert authority over sovereign nations, critics say. Trump has previously said that the only limit on his authority is his "own morality" and his "own mind."
He also highlighted his new agreement with Denmark and Greenland to formalize the U.S. rights in Greenland. Later, he held a signing ceremony with the countries' officials.
Trump spent the beginning of his speech touting the U.S. economy, his immigration policy and the drop in violent crime.
"The entire world is being lifted by the wealth, strength, spirit and momentum of a newly energized and a very powerful United States of America," Trump said.
Trump's address to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly comes after a challenging few weeks of legal and political setbacks. He's also riding a wave of low approval —below 40% — thanks in part to growing concerns about the economic fallout from the Iran war. And he's facing blowback after banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. The news organizations have sued to regain access.
Less than two months from the midterm elections, Trump is looking for wins as he kicks off a high-profile week of diplomacy at the U.N. before hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington.
The first time he addressed the U.N. General Assembly in 2017, Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea. The second year, he boasted that his administration had accomplished more than any other in American history. Some leaders laughed out loud.
Last year, Trump blasted the U.N. and told leaders, "Your countries are going to hell."
"What is the purpose of the United Nations?" Trump asked. "It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential."
Much of Trump's diplomacy is happening on the sidelines of the event.
Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi - and is expected to meet with Gulf leaders and Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodríguez.
The importance of those meetings speaks to the changing role of the U.N. as an institution, said Richard Fontaine, who served in the George W. Bush White House and now runs the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on national security issues.
"The meat of the diplomacy will be done in the private meetings, not at the U.N. Security Council or in the U.N. General Assembly," Fontaine said.
The U.N. Security Council has also struggled to come to agreement on key issues.
Another issue at the top of the agenda is artificial intelligence. A U.N. panel recently called for stronger safeguards on artificial intelligence agents.
In his speech, Trump downplayed concerns, saying it came from the same people who promoted "the Russia hoax."
"We will only encourage super intelligence," Trump said. "We're going to encourage it, not rein it in."
Leaders are expected to try to come to some kind of global agreement on guardrails around the advancing technology.
The dilemma is that so many of these issues revolve around China, and President Xi won't be there, said Heather Conley, who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
"So this is the challenge," Conley said. "In many ways, we have global leaders coming to New York to offer their own set piece speeches, how they look at the world. But the world will not be looking towards New York on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. They're going to be looking at Washington."
That's because Xi will not be traveling to New York. He will instead be traveling to Washington, D.C., for a state dinner with Trump.
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