Trump stuns UN general assembly into silence with fiery speech

On the 23^rd of September, United States President Donald Trump gave a fiery speech that laid bare his ideological worldview. He tore into friend and foe alike, and whilst speaking to the leaders of Western Europe, he stated that “your countries are going to hell”, as reported by Middle Eastern Eye via Reuters.

Over the course of a 55-minute speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump outlined his vision of foreign policy, delivering a wide-ranging address that reflected his characteristic approach to global geopolitics and multilateralism.

His public lecture mainly focused on Western Europe and the failure of the UN. He spoke of the “free world” and that many lessons could be taken from his policies in the United States, ranging from immigration and climate change, which have supposedly led the United States to a “golden age”.

This is not the first time, and likely not the last, that Donald Trump has hypocritically lectured the Western world on its policy and practice. For example, he and his vice president, JD Vance, have justifiably attacked Britain’s lack of free speech; however, they have simultaneously denied the right to free speech in their own country.

Alongside his bemusing assessment of immigration and climate change policies, which he described as a “double-tailed monster” that “destroys everything in its wake”, he repeatedly claimed that he had helped in “ending seven wars”. The seven wars he bragged to have ended were between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is unclear if the United States is a long-term guarantor to peace in any of these conflicts.

There are two obvious conflicts that were conveniently not included in this dubious list, firstly the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which he repeatedly claimed in his 2024 presidential campaign that he would end within 24 hours of stepping into the White House, and secondly Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Although Donald Trump has at points called for an end to Israel’s relentless assault on the people of Gaza, saying that Israel should end its war on Gaza “soon”, the United States has voted 6 times to veto a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, which would allow aid to flow freely to the people of Gaza who are suffering from Israel’s genocidal assault and siege. This, combined with Donald Trump’s criticism of multilateralism and the United Nations, underscored the contradictions present throughout his address.

Speaking on the United Nations, Trump declared that all they do is “write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up”, continuing that “empty words don’t solve war”. However, critics have argued that international multilateral bodies, such as the United Nations, are only as effective as its member states, such as the United States, allow it to be.