Global talk forum

Donald Trump’s address at the 80th UN General Assembly on September 23 was less a statesman’s speech and more a circus act of self-promotion, grievance, and reckless bravado. What should have been an opportunity for the President of the United States to rally the world behind cooperation and peace turned into a monologue dripping with narcissism and contempt. His tirade against the UN was not just undiplomatic-it was an embarrassment to the very nation he represents. Ironically, technical glitches during the address seemed to mock the grandstanding. An escalator malfunction as Trump and Melania prepared to ascend, followed by hiccups in the teleprompter, appear to validate his words. In Trump’s telling, the UN is dysfunctional-but the malfunctions on display lent a curious weight to his accusations. Trump’s obsession with himself was on full parade. He ranted about his supposed achievements, blamed every crisis on the Biden administration, and claimed that the war in Ukraine would never have begun had he been in charge. He fingered China and India as “primary funders” of Russia’s war while sneering at NATO allies for buying Russian oil. He even falsely repeated the claim that he brokered the recent cease fire between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. None of this was about solutions; it was about inflating his indispensability and painting the rest of the world as either weak or corrupt. However to laugh only at Trump is to miss the larger rot of General Assembly. The UN itself is a masterclass in hypocrisy. Secretary-General António Guterres thundered about Gaza’s deterioration two years after Hamas’s October 7 attack, yet his silence on Russia’s daily war crimes in Ukraine was ominous. So hospitals can burn in Kyiv, but Gaza commands the outrage? Such selective moral outrage makes the UN look less like a peacekeeper and more like a political pawnshop. Then there’s a liberal chameleon – France’s Emmanuel Macron, who decided to grandstand in his own way- declaring recognition of Palestine by breaking ranks with the EU, and throwing fuel on the already raging Gaza fire. While bold on the surface, it was yet another act of theater- a move that weakens Western unity while doing little to actually stop the bloodshed. The brutal truth is that the UN is not paralyzed by incompetence alone but crippled by design. The veto powers enjoyed by the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, and China guarantee that no matter how overwhelming the majority vote, real action can be blocked. Peace, justice, and human rights are sacrificed at the altar of five nations’ privileges. The rest of the world is left to clap politely or seethe silently. Trump’s swagger, Guterres’s double standards, and Macron’s opportunism expose the UN for what it has become- not a guardian of peace but a theater of hypocrisy. The speeches are grand, the chambers opulent, the language lofty. However, behind the façade lies paralysis, vanity, and betrayal. Trump’s speech against the UN, may not have been totally without basis, as it exposes the grim reality- that if the world continues to treat the global body as credible while it props up its own irrelevance, then the price will be paid not in headlines-but in human lives.