U.S. President Donald Trump relentlessly mocked the United Nations on Tuesday (September 23, 2025) in his first address since his White House comeback, blasting it for failing to bring peace and claiming the world body encourages illegal migration.

U.S. President Trump’s address at the UNGA: Follow highlights, updates from September 23, 2025

In his return to the U.N. General Assembly podium, Mr. Trump accused the U.N. of fostering an “assault” through migration on Western countries that he said were “going to hell.”

He likewise used the major forum to denounce efforts to reduce global warming, calling climate change concerns “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” asked Mr. Trump. “All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter,” he said. “It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war”

The 79-year-old even complained about a broken escalator and teleprompter at the New York headquarters of the U.N., which he has repeatedly targeted during both of his presidential terms.

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“This is these are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” he said.

Touting what he said were his efforts to end seven wars, Trump turned to two where his outreach has produced no results — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.

He called recognition by a slate of Washington’s allies of a Palestinian state a “reward” to armed group Hamas for “horrible atrocities” and urged the group to release hostages to reach peace.

Mr. Trump lashed out at European allies, as well as China and India, for failing to stop oil purchases from Russia, while remaining relatively restrained on Moscow even as he said Washington was ready to impose unspecified sanctions.

Some of his strongest language was reserved for migration as he lambasted the UN for “funding an assault” on Western nations.

“It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders,” Mr. Trump said. “Your countries are going to hell,” he said, also attacking London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital.

‘Wreaking havoc’

Mr. Trump’s second term has opened with a blaze of nationalist policies curbing cooperation with the rest of the world.

He has moved to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization and the U.N. climate pact, severely curtailed US development assistance and wielded sanctions against foreign judges over rulings he sees as violating sovereignty.

Opening the annual summit, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that aid cuts led by the United States were “wreaking havoc” in the world.

“What kind of world will we choose? A world of raw power — or a world of laws?” Mr. Guterres said.

On Ukraine, Mr. Trump will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the second time since he sat down in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 — a summit that broke Moscow’s isolation in the West but yielded no breakthrough on Ukraine.

Despite Mr. Trump’s insistence that he can broker a quick end to the war, Russia has not only kept up its barrage of attacks on Ukraine in the past month but rattled nerves with drone or air incursions in NATO members Poland, Estonia and Romania.

Mr. Trump said last week that Mr. Putin had “really let me down.”

One of Mr. Trump’s few other one-on-one meetings will be with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, an ideological ally to whose government the United States is considering offering an economic lifeline.

Ahead of his visit to the U.N. district, swarming with heavily armed police and agents and crisscrossed with barricades and road closures, the U.S. Secret Service said they had disrupted a “telecommunications-related” plot.

The Secret Service said it a weaponised farm of more than 1,00,000 cellphone SIM cards that was capable of blocking communications around the U.N., and that it “nation-state threat actors” were involved.

Published – September 23, 2025 09:13 pm IST

A sweeping deportation program, ending “transgender lunacy,” “drill, baby, drill,” and peace for Ukraine: President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to move big and fast when he returns to the White House on Monday.

Here is a look at his sensational but frequently vague promises for a second term — much of them likely to be enacted through executive orders.

Immigration

Trump promises a hardline stance against an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States.

“When I am reelected, we will begin… the largest deportation operation in American history,” the Republican billionaire said on the campaign trail.

He also vowed to end birthright citizenship, calling it “ridiculous.”

To achieve those goals, Trump is weighing declaring a national emergency, which would allow him to unlock Pentagon resources.

Analysts also expect him to issue executive orders on other aspects of immigration policy, including possibly to terminate an app used by migrants hoping to petition for asylum.

However, birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the US Constitution, and any deportation program will face legal challenges as well as potential refusals by some countries to accept deportees.

Trade wars?

Trump has vowed to slap a 25 percent tariff on goods imported from Mexico and Canada — top US trading partners — as punishment for what he says is their failure to stem the flow of drugs and undocumented migrants into the United States.

But is Trump really ready to unleash a trade war with US neighbors, rupturing a North American free trade agreement? Some see this — and an even more provocative suggestion that Canada should be absorbed into the United States — as pre-negotiation bluster.

Beijing should also buckle up.

Trump has threatened to impose a 10 percent tariff on Chinese products, adding to existing tariffs that date back to his first term. Trump accuses China of allowing the chemical components used to make fentanyl.

January 6 pardons?

The president-elect has suggested he might pardon some or all of the people involved in the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol, when his supporters tried to overthrow the 2020 election in which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump has described them as “hostages” and “political prisoners” and said that he will be “making major pardons” in connection with the incident, but it remains unclear how he might differentiate cases involving violence against police officers.

More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes in the deadly assault, and more than 1,100 of them have been sentenced.

Wars and diplomacy

Trump warned that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if Hamas does not release Israeli hostages before his inauguration — and promptly took credit when a ceasefire and hostage release deal negotiated by the Biden Administration was announced Wednesday.

Trump also says he intends to quickly end Russia’s war against Ukraine, though it is unclear when or how he plans to do that.

After promising over the summer to end the nearly three-year conflict “in 24 hours,” Trump more recently suggested a timeline of several months.

Climate

Climate skeptic Trump has promised to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas.

He plans to repeal some of Biden’s key climate policies, such as tax credits for electric vehicles, which are meant to encourage a transition to a green economy.

Trump also wants to boost offshore drilling, though he might need to secure congressional support to do that. Biden has selected swaths of ocean as protected no-drill areas.

Transgender rights and race

“With the stroke of my pen on day one, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy,” Trump said in December, vowing to “end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools.”

He also said the US government would recognize only two genders, male and female.

Also among his plans is cutting federal funding to schools that have adopted “critical race theory,” an approach that looks at US history through the lens of racism.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)