Trump at the United Nations: The Mad King Appears Without His Clothes

The image of US president Donald Trump addressing the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 2025, as he presented a rambling egotistical, nationalistic and aggressive speech, conveyed that the international community is in deep turmoil and the global forum of the UN is potentially on its last legs, due to this belligerence on display.

For most of his close to an hourlong speech, the “leader of the free world” spoke in a familiar manner that appeared to only address western leaders, so that those representing the remaining 85 percent of the planet that is the Global South were only watching on, and at the meeting that was supposed to focus on world peace and global heating, Trump stoked division and climate denial.

As the US president delivered his speech in a gangster-like tone, he was also in the midst of tearing down the norms of the international community, as he condemned western leaders, whose nation’s “are going to hell” due to “unmitigated immigration”, and he further went on to suggest that all nations should return to fossil fuel use, or to “drill baby drill”, as “the carbon footprint is a hoax”.

Indeed, the appearance of Trump spouting bad faith rhetoric at a meeting of the global community, along with US diplomat Morgan Ortagus having delivered the only vote against an 18 September UN resolution to instate “an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire” in Gaza, both had something of the air of a villain in a Bond movie threatening to destroy the planet about them.

The obvious issue for this nation is that our government appears to want it both ways, as prime minister Anthony Albanese’s cabinet continues to placate the US in terms of rising militarisation, along with it having taken the Trumpian cue to pass laws to crackdown on refugees and migrants, however the PM’s recent climate announcement puts him at loggerheads with the new king.

Dehumanising immigrants

“Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often, it’s actually creating new problems for us to solve,” the US president said at about 20 minutes into his UN General Assembly speech. “The best example is the number one political issue of our time: the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It’s uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined.”

“The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them, and not finance them,” decried Trump, as he implied the UN is funding mass migration into the US and Europe. “We reject the idea that mass numbers of people from foreign lands can be permitted to travel halfway around the world, trample our borders, violate our sovereignty, cause unmitigated crime and deplete our social safety net.”

Trump outlined that his administration has “reasserted that America belongs to the American people”, and he encouraged all nations to do similar. He said he wouldn’t mention which leaders are permitting their countries to go to hell, but he made certain that they are European nations, and his tone hinted at dwindling diplomatic relations if countries leave their migrant problem unaddressed.

The president made certain that European nations “have the right to control their borders”, as his administration has been doing since January this year, and he implied that the leaders of these nations owe it to their people to do this. The US president then read out figures that suggested European prisons are being filled with “so-called asylum-seekers who repaid kindness… with crime”.

“In America, we’ve taken bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration,” Trump said, as he too suggested that all allied western nations should commence similar programs. “Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border and removing illegal aliens from the United States, they simply stopped coming. They’re not coming anymore.”

“The greatest con job ever perpetrated”

Trump outlined that the dual crises of immigration and “suicidal energy ideas”, or climate change abatement, “will be the death of western Europe”. 

The Australian PM and foreign minister watched on as Trump delivered his diatribe, and it must have been lost upon neither them that when the US president called on Europe to conduct deportation drives and to reverse climate action this included the antipodean nations. 

The US president then decried European moves to avert climate change via renewable energy. He lamented the fact that Scotland is sitting on some premium oil reserves in the North Sea, however local authorities are rather currently ruining the “countryside with windmills and massive solar panels”, as he further signalled that western nations should cease turning away from fossil fuel use.

The former reality TV host also cited random past quotes from UN officials predicting climate change catastrophes that have not eventuated, in order to debunk the idea that the planet is heating up at an ever-accelerating pace, and he even went on to raise the tired old climate denying point that back in the 1920s, some experts had warned of global cooling.

The carbon footprint was deemed a “con job” by president Trump. He explained that European nations had strived to reduce their carbon footprint by 37 percent, but in actuality, all this achieved was a reduction in jobs and many factory closures. Trump too underscored that taking such climate action is a grave waste, when China is greatly expanding its production of greenhouse gas emissions.

“The primary effect of these brutal green energy policies has not been to help the environment but to redistribute manufacturing and industrial activity from developed countries that follow the insane rules that are put down to polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune,” Trump warned in continuing his Eurocentric spiel. “They’re making a fortune.”

Towing the line

As the US leader appeared before the forum regarding global unity, the president bragged about his nation “being the hottest country anywhere in the world” and having the “strongest spirit”, as he obviously missed the point that a UN meeting is supposed to foster international cooperation, and therefore, his grandiose display was devoid of any real diplomacy or leadership qualities.

As his words rang out in the chamber, the president’s assertions that served to demonise immigrants and deny climate change were understood to be blatant lies by much of the audience, and in this manner such an important figure in the global order appearing at such a forum and unloading vast tracts of disinformation reveals clear signs that the global assembly is being undermined.

But regardless of whether those in the crowd could see through the falsehoods the president was propagating, the clear message he was sending to US traditional allies at the forum is that unless these nations follow the US into a new era of renewed fossil fuel use and climate denialism, they might soon find themselves at odds with one of the most powerful nations on the planet.

In terms of how our government’s adherence to the new political doctrine the US president has unveiled is going, Albanese has passed laws that will serve to facilitate a mass deportation drive if need be, however the PM has only just made a recommitment to reducing this nation’s carbon emissions, and he went on to spruik the need to take climate action at this week’s UN meet.

So, as this nation draws closer to the 50th anniversary of the 1975 dismissal of then Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam, the concern is that the Trump administration may take a disliking to the policy position of the Albanese government and sitting pretty for another three years killing time until the other lot potentially take out the next Australian election, just might be too long a wait.