President Donald Trump assailed the United Nations for offering nothing but "empty words," delivering a grievance-laden speech that accused the world body of funding illegal migration and failing to help his efforts to end wars around the world.
President Donald Trump assailed the United Nations for offering nothing but "empty words," delivering a grievance-laden speech that accused the world body of funding illegal migration and failing to help his efforts to end wars around the world.
Setting aside calls for unity, Trump used his annual speech to the UN General Assembly to dwell on an escalator that broke earlier in the day as First Lady Melania Trump stepped onto it and for his teleprompter malfunctioning as he began his address. He ruminated on a two-decade old grievance that his bid to renovate the UN headquarters had been rejected.
"I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal," Trump said Tuesday. "These are the two things I got from the United Nations -- a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter, thank you very much," he added.
Trump also accused the UN of "funding an assault on Western countries and their borders," citing efforts to provide aid to migrants.
"The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them, and not finance them," he said. "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."
"We have reasserted that America belongs to the American people, and I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well," Trump added.
The president instead focused his address on touting what he cast as achievements to lower inflation and spur higher wages. He said immigration was destroying other countries, that the US is now the "hottest country in the world," and repeated his claim that he's solved seven conflicts around the globe.
"What is the purpose of the United Nations?" Trump said. "At least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up? It's empty words, and empty words don't solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action."
Trump's far more aggressive approach has rankled other members of the UN not least because he has shown so little consideration to it. He's withdrawn the US from bodies such as UNESCO and the Human Rights Council, and just as in his first term, walked away from the World Health Organization. He's also rejected many of the ideas it holds dear, such as the effort to fight climate change and protect asylum-seekers.
The US has all but stopped paying its bills to the United Nations since Trump took office in January and still has outstanding arrears from 2024, according to the UN. And he's implemented a far more restrictive visa policy, barring Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from attending this week's General Assembly session and imposing new limits on Iranian diplomats.
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.