President Donald Trump will use his address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to cast himself as a global leader who has "confronted complex problems head-on" and boast of his purported success in formulating peace deals — even as the war he launched against Iran in February enters its seventh month with no end in sight.
Trump is set to arrive in his former hometown of New York on Monday afternoon after a day of meetings at the White House — plus a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new helipad he has had constructed on the White House’s South Lawn — and will then have a pair of meetings with New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron before spending the evening at what his ambassador to the United Nations Mike Walz described as "political events" hosted at Trump Tower.
The president will speak at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday morning in the time slot traditionally reserved for American presidents — following Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Brazilian President Lula da Silva — and will then hold a series of bilateral meetings, including his first sit-down with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
He’ll also meet with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council to discuss the ongoing fallout from the war he started against Iran more than a half-year ago and have a brief pull-aside with the U.S.-backed interim leader of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, before returning to the White House.
Although Waltz characterized Trump’s remarks to the U.N. as highlighting his administration's accomplishments, the president arrives in New York with precious little to boast of, having started a war that has completely upended the global economy and destabilized the Middle East while empowering Iran and its proxies.
Waltz, who Trump installed in the U.N. post last year after the former Florida congressman embarrassed the administration by inadvertently leaking classified information in a Signal chat that included a reporter, said Trump’s remarks Tuesday will “will highlight how he and his administration have confronted complex problems head-on around the world” and brag about how peace deals he has worked on are “in the process of driving to conclusion.”
“He'll include many of the issues, frankly neglected by past administrations, that he's not going to kick the can on. He's not going to leave them for another day or another administration. He will touch on the importance of ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, which is not only demanded by the United States, has been demanded by the UN Security Council and repeated resolutions, and he'll talk about some of the United States’ accomplishments in over the past year since the last time he was here,” he said.
The president’s brief sojourn to the city he called home for the vast majority of his 80 years will kick off a week heavy on foreign policy matters despite the midterm elections being just over a month away. He is set to host Chinese president Xi Jinping later this week for a state visit — the second his administration has hosted this year and Xi’s first state visit to Washington in almost exactly a decade.
On Saturday, Tehran's top security official said Iran had sent Washington its conditions for ending the fighting through Qatari mediators: a halt to hostilities "on all fronts," including Lebanon, the release of frozen Iranian funds and an end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports. Trump, who cut short a weekend at Camp David to return to the White House, told Fox News on Sunday morning he was in "deciding mode" and weighing options that ranged from a deal to "wiping Iran out."
"My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up?" he said. "They better behave." He also said he would probably be open to meeting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in New York; the State Department has approved visas for Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to attend.
A senior administration official said the Iranian delegation would be smaller than last year's and declined to say whether any meeting was planned. The same official argued that the blockade and a sanctions campaign the Treasury calls Operation Economic Outcast were working.
Oil is moving through the Strait of Hormuz at "10 to 11 million barrels a day," the official said, citing Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and "the leverage that the Iranian regime has over the Straits of Hormuz is diminishing by the week." With the rial "at a record low" and Iranian inflation "at a record high," the official said, "in one way or another, we expect the Iranian regime to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon."
While the administration continues to insist that the war’s effect on the American economy will be short-lived, Trump’s pivot to foreign policy this week comes at a perilous political time for him and his party.
Gasoline averaged $4.44 a gallon on Thursday, up nearly 50 percent since the war began, and diesel set a record at $6.40. Brent crude closed the week near $103 a barrel, roughly 55 percent above its prewar price. Consumer prices rose 3.4 percent in the year through August, and on Wednesday the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, with Chairman Kevin Warsh naming "tension in the Middle East" among the reasons for a unanimous vote. The average 30-year mortgage is back above 7.4 percent.
The economic toll the war has taken on Americans appears to be reflected in polling showing Democrats in a strong position ahead of the November midterm elections.
Silver Bulletin's polling average, updated Friday, put support for the war at 34 percent against 58 percent opposed. A New York Times/Siena poll last week found 64 percent of Americans called the decision to go to war the wrong one.
A Fox News poll released Thursday found 71 percent of voters, including 43 percent of Republicans, believe the administration has no clear plan to end it, and put Trump's job approval at 39 percent. And a recent Reuters/Ipsos has him at 33 percent, tied for the lowest reading of either of his two non-consecutive terms.
Separately, an NBC News survey found the share of Republicans who strongly approve of his handling of the war has fallen 18 points since spring, to 30 percent.
Democrats now lead the generic congressional ballot by 7.5 points, their widest margin of the cycle, and on Tuesday seven House Republicans joined Democrats in a 220-204 vote to limit the president's authority to strike Iran.
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