As expected, Donald Trump made the glass palace tremble. His return to the General Assembly, after six years of absence from that podium, had the effect of a political earthquake: irreverent jokes, direct attacks on the UN and his secretary general António Guterres, and above all an agenda that hit the uncovered nerves of the international community, starting from climate, energy and migration.
From the beginning, the American president has also transformed small technical accidents into show: the teleprompter that did not work and the mobile stairs blocked at the entrance. “In this way I will talk more with the heart,” he said, snatching a smile from the delegates. But immediately afterwards he placed the first lunge: “In seven months I put an end to seven wars that said they were not ends. I never received a phone call from the UN, nobody thanked me”. A phrase that froze the room, especially because Guterres, as its spokesman repeats almost daily, has always argued that “the door of the secretary general remains open for anyone who wants to knock”.
The contrast with Guterres’ speech could not be more clear. While the Secretary General asked for a “renewed multilateralism” and a coordinated response to the climatic crisis, Trump has liquidated climate change as “the biggest scam ever perpetrated in the world”, pointing the finger at China as the main responsible for pollution. He accused the ecological policies of being “the road to bankruptcy”, taking Germany as an example of bankruptcy: “He was focusing on the green, and was going bankrupt”. On the energy front, he reiterated his support for fossil fuels and American energy independence, dismantling years of multilateral negotiations.
“Fossil Fuels are not a losing bet” – he insisted – making it clear that for Washington the green transition will remain subject to economic growth and energy safety. The other director of his intervention was immigration. For over ten minutes he attacked both the UN and Europe. “He should stop the invasions, do not create and finance them,” he said with a contemptuous tone, exhorting the allies to follow the American example: “We have taken courageous actions to quickly end uncontrolled immigration. Once we started holding and deporting, illegal immigrants simply stopped arriving”. Then the warning to Europe: “It is time to put an end to the failed experiment of open borders. You must do it now. Your countries will go to hell”.
There was no lack of unexpected openings: Trump has announced that the United States “will guide an international effort to strengthen the organic weapons agreement through a system of checks based on artificial intelligence”, inviting all countries to “put an end to the development of biological weapons once and for all”. The speech ended with a mixture of self -celebration and nostalgia: “This is truly the golden age of America,” he said, listing the internal successes and attributing any global crisis to the errors of the previous Biden administration.
In the room, Melania Trump, whom the president greeted with a surprise compliment: “The First Lady is in great shape. We are both in great shape”, a beaten that torn another laugh from the assembly. Trump thus managed to transform the UN podium into a personal stage, with the usual mix of entertainment and provocation. He demolished, point by point, the multilateral agenda of Guterres, proposing a America that acts alone, without the need for international mediations. If the goal was to make the glass building tremble, the mission can be said to be accomplished.
Another explosive part has arrived on Palestine. Trump defined a reward for Hamas’ terrorists “the recognition of the Palestinian state decided in these hours from France, the United Kingdom and other European countries but not from Italy. He relaunched the Abraham agreements as a model to be resumed, asking for the immediate liberation of all Israeli hostages and the return of the bodies of the victims.
“We cannot forget on October 7,” he said, reaffirming a line without compromise. On the conflict in Ukraine, however, he used partly surprising tones. He recalled his “excellent relationship” with Vladimir Putin, but he admitted that he was not enough to stop the war: “He had to last three days and be a small fast scaramuccia. The fact that he lasted so long is making a bad impression on Russia.” Immediately afterwards he pointed his finger at China and India, accusing her of “financing the war by buying Russian oil” and threatening heavy penalties against those who will continue to do so.