Trump to take aim at ‘globalist institutions,’ make case for his foreign policy record in UN speech

NEW YORK: Watched by the world, President Donald Trump returns to the United Nations on Tuesday to deliver a wide-ranging address on his second-term foreign policy achievements and lament that “globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order,” according to the White House.
World leaders will be listening closely to his remarks at the UN General Assembly as Trump has already moved quickly to diminish US support for the world body in his first eight months in office. Even in his first term, he was no fan of the flavor of multilateralism that the United Nations espouses.
After his latest inauguration, he issued a first-day executive order withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. That was followed by his move to end US participation in the UN Human Rights Council, and ordering up a review of US membership in hundreds of intergovernmental organizations aimed at determining whether they align with the priorities of his “America First” agenda.
“There are great hopes for it, but it’s not being well run, to be honest,” Trump said of the UN last week.
The US president’s speech is typically among the most anticipated moments of the annual assembly. This one comes at one of the most volatile moments in the world body’s 80-year-old history. Global leaders are being tested by intractable wars in Gaza,Ukraine and Sudan, uncertainty about the economic and social impact of emerging artificial intelligence technology, and anxiety about Trump’s antipathy for the global body.
Trump has also raised new questions about the American use of military force in his return to the White House, after ordering US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June and a trio of strikes this month on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea.
The latter strikes, including at least two fatal attacks on boats that originated from Venezuela, has raised speculation in Caracas that Trump is looking to set the stage for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Some US lawmakers and human rights advocates say that Trump is effectively carrying out extrajudicial killings by using US forces to lethally target alleged drug smugglers instead of interdicting the suspected vessels, seizing any drugs and prosecuting the suspects in US courts.
“This is by far the most stressed the UN system has ever been in its 80 years,” said Anjali K. Dayal, a professor of international politics at Fordham University in New York.
Trump to hold one-on-one talks with world leaders
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would tout “the renewal of American strength around the world” and his efforts to help end several wars.
“The president will also touch upon how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order, and he will articulate his straightforward and constructive vision for the world,” Leavitt said.
Following his speech, Trump will hold one-on-one meetings with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the leaders of Ukraine, Argentina and the European Union. He will also hold a group meeting with officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
He’ll return to Washington after hosting a reception Tuesday night with more than 100 invited world leaders.
Gaza and Ukraine cast shadow over Trump speech
Trump has struggled to deliver on his 2024 campaign promises to quickly end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His response has been also relatively muted as some longtime American allies are using this year’s General Assembly to spotlight the growing international campaign for recognition of a Palestinian state, a move that the US and Israel vehemently oppose.
France became the latest nation to recognize Palestinian statehood on Monday at the start of a high-profile meeting at the UN aimed at galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict. More nations are expected to follow.
Leavitt said Trump sees the push as “just more talk and not enough action from some of our friends and allies.”
Trump, for his part, in the lead-up to Tuesday’s address has tried to keep focus on getting agreement on a ceasefire that leads Hamas to releasing its remaining 48 hostages, including 20 still believed be alive.
“I’d like to see a diplomatic solution,” Trump told reporters Sunday evening. “There’s a lot of anger and a lot of hatred, you know that, and there has been for a lot of years … but hopefully we’ll get something done.”
Leaders in the room will also be eager to hear what Trump has to say about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It’s been more than a month since Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and key European leaders. Following those meetings, Trump announced that he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelensky. But Putin hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelensky and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine since the Alaska summit.
European leaders as well as American lawmakers, including some key Republican allies of Trump, have urged the president to dial up stronger sanctions on Russia. Trump, meanwhile, has pressed Europe to stop buying Russian oil, the engine feeding Putin’s war machine.
Trump has Oslo dreams
Despite his struggles to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Trump has made clear that he wants to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, repeatedly making the spurious claim that he’s “ended seven wars” since he returned to office.
He points to his administration’s efforts to end conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.
Although Trump helped mediate relations among many of these nations, experts say his impact isn’t as clear cut as he claims.
Still, Trump’s Nobel ambitions could have impact on the tenor of his address, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“His speech is going to be driven by how much he really believes he has a chance of getting a Nobel Peace Prize,” Montgomery said. “If he thinks that’s still something he can do, then I think he knows you don’t go into the UN and drop a grenade down the tank hatch and shut it, right?”

WASHINGTON: The FBI has continued its personnel purge, forcing out additional agents and supervisors tied to the federal investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The latest firings came despite efforts by Washington’s top federal prosecutor to try to stop at least some of the terminations, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The employees were told this week that they were being fired but those plans were paused after D.C. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro raised concerns, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters.
The agents were then fired again Tuesday, though it’s not clear what prompted the about-face. The total number of fired agents was not immediately clear.
The terminations are part of a broader personnel upheaval under the leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel, who has pushed out numerous senior officials and agents involved in investigations or actions that have angered the Trump administration. Three ousted high-ranking FBI officials sued Patel in September, accusing him of caving to political pressure to carry out a “campaign of retribution.”
Spokespeople for Patel and Pirro didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Tuesday.
The FBI Agents Association, which has criticized Patel for the firings, said the director has “disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution.”
“The actions yesterday — in which FBI Special Agents were terminated and then reinstated shortly after, and then only to be fired again today — highlight the chaos that occurs when long-standing policies and processes are ignored,” the association said. “An Agent simply being assigned to an investigation and conducting it appropriately within the law should never be grounds for termination.”
The 2020 election investigation that ultimately led to special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump has come under intense scrutiny from GOP lawmakers, who have accused the Biden administration Justice Department of being weaponized against conservatives. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has in recent weeks released documents from the investigation provided by the FBI, including ones showing that investigators analyzed phone records from more than a half dozen Republican lawmakers as part of their inquiry.
The Justice Department has fired prosecutors and other department employees who worked on Smith’s team, and the FBI has similarly forced out agents and senior officials for a variety of reasons as part of an ongoing purge that has added to the tumult and sense of unease inside the bureau.
The FBI in August ousted the head of the bureau’s Washington field office as well as the former acting director who resisted Trump administration demands to turn over the names of agents who participated in Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigations. And in September, it fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Trump to take aim at ‘globalist institutions,’ make case for his foreign policy record in UN speech