Trump invades the UN with a brutish speech | Ted Widmer

Gone was any shred of US idealism. It was a spectacle of raw power - a power that is likely to only diminish in the years ahead

Expectations were low for Donald Trump's address to the UN on Tuesday, and yet somehow it was even worse than expected. He does not perform well in formal settings, like chambers of government, preferring a blingier room, like Mar-a-Lago, or an outdoor rally. For years, he has made no secret of his hostility to the UN, and the very principles of international order that define it.

In recent years, that hostility has deepened into something more like a full-on assault, with frequent attacks on the international criminal court (perhaps out of fear that he will someday be indicted), on the UN's climate agenda, and on Unesco (which the US decided to withdraw from in July 2025).