Ecaterina MATOI*
1. Introduction and background
The September 2026 General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA 81st session) hosted global leaders amid an increasing global energy crisis, reflected in gasoline prices and relatively low oil reserves in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), as well as ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, and an accelerated rearmament race.
In leaders’ speeches addressing the Assembly, established spats and disputes continued to dominate the discourse. The venue remained a public discussion forum, but the speeches appear to increasingly diverge, certain speakers contradicting directly or indirectly, or returning accusations to counterparts. The year 2026 was the second year in a row in which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his team were not allowed to attend the UNGA, since the US administration refused to grant visas to their delegation.
2. American President’s speech at UNGA
Although President Donald Trump’s speech resembled a reelection campaign rally or a discourse at the State of the Union address, it also emphasized various topics relevant for international relations. In line with previous declarations and actions, President Trump’s speech included two parts on the Iranian war. In the first section, US achievements in the campaign on Iran were re-emphasized and detailed, suggesting that Washington has achieved all its goals, maintaining thus the option to close the offensive without political backlash at home should the desired arrangement be achieved. It must be emphasized that the depth of accusations against Iran decreased, despite the fact that the accusatory language remained in place. This in the second part of the speech, US President reiterated that a decision on another large attack on Iran is still pending, and at some point, this will be taken, emphasizing with confidence that the US midterm elections do not represent a timeline in this regard.
While US foreign policy attempted to secure global backing against Iran through resolution 2817, on which the Russian Federation and China abstained, the condemnation of Iran’s “Egregious Attacks” against neighbors bears no resemblance to the endorsement the US and the UK received from United Nations Security Council (UNSC) after invading Iraq, the 2026 resolution being a much weaker and non-consequential, i.e. merely symbolical, form of protest requested probably the Persian Gulf states.
President Trump addressed the Palestinian crisis, but consistently avoided using the word “Palestinian” or Palestine, in a clearly visible censorship exercise, obvious when attempting to mention where the money from Gaza Board of Peace went, i.e. to the “source” instead of destination, or more precisely the Palestinians. While presenting the Board as a success with 30 member countries, President Trump emphasized its limits as well: it is probably not the smallest international coalition, but also not a large consensus when considering the 193 United Nations members as of 2026.
The US appears to struggle in gathering Gaza Board of Peace members, but a wider leadership and originality crisis can be associated with President Trump’s way of presenting internal economic achievements. The inspiration from China’s leadership in “lifting citizens out of poverty” was identified when President Trump declared that in the previous year alone (i.e. 2025) his administration lifted 1.5 million Americans out from poverty. While the result is commendable, utilizing the Chinese government’s familiar emblem in domestic policy reminds the observers of the American and European attempt to launch competitors to Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after it was launched, with few clear results more than one decade later. Furthermore, the argument that the 1.5 million includes African-American and Hispanic populations may be interpreted as a surprise when considering the controversies surrounding America’s anti-illegal immigration recent campaigns, potentially signalizing a relaxation of these policies.
In an attempt to introduce any sort of innovation, in line with his administration’s push to reform foundational terms such as the Gulf of Mexico or Lake Ontario, President Trump attempted to replace Artificial Intelligence with Super Intelligence, probably to the benefit of US corporations marketing software technologies worth billions of USD.
President Trump called out the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Net-Zero Framework that sought to introduce a greenhouse gas emission tax, ensuring that this will not be agreed upon by the US. In doing so, Washington contributes to the maintenance of hydrocarbon industries’ competitiveness, which delivered very large returns to the US in recent years.
3. Old and new topics at 2026 UNGA
Before proceeding with the evaluation of the arguments certain speakers provided, it must be emphasized that, in general and despite all failures, most members appear to favor a reform of the UN rather than its demise, despite President Trump’s escalation against UN bodies such as the IMO, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNESCO, UN Human Rights Council and other defunded branches.
The calls for reform are multiple and varied, Brazilian President Lula claimed the emergence of excesses from superpowers and a process of injustice normalization amid the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II (WWII). He rebukes a so-called paralysis of the UN, and implies that democracy is under threat. Spain’s President Pedro Sanchez, alongside other leaders emphasize on the necessity to reform the UN as well, while French President Emmanuel called out an alleged return of arrogance, imperialism, unrestrained force, asking the audience whether international relations should be civilized or follow “law of the jungle”. President Macron underlined that world’s future cannot be decided by the US and China alone, and, as many other countries due to various reasons, emphasized that there cannot be peace without justice. The reasons many countries cited injustice were notably different: France referenced specifically pressures on International Criminal Court (ICC), Spain and Ireland decry the situation in the Gaza Strip among others, Iranian President called his fellow citizens victims of terror, Qatar calls for justice and non-interference in internal matters in the context of Iran’s response to US-imposed war, etc. Consequently, the term injustice reunites a series of complaints under one yet unconsolidated umbrella, stemming from different directions.
France and Brazil are not the only countries calling out the dismissal (by the US, alongside oil powers from the Persian Gulf and elsewhere) of climate action, which reportedly left the agenda of G7 and G20 meetings (Brazil’s statement). Many states threatened by the developments also called out the lack of concise action in this direction, but a coordinated UN action appears blocked as of 2026, mainly due to US opposition.
France’s approach to AI in the context of international affairs was described in detail by President Macron, who advocated for an open-source, available for all, computational frontier model, shared among nations. Unlike the US, which rejected also the concept of a regulatory global consensus, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Brazilian, French and Turkish presidents called out monopolization of technological power, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling for a fast-tracked International UN Convention for Artificial Intelligence.
British PM Andy Burnham called AI a priority during upcoming G20 Presidency, but insisted on combating AI-multiplied disinformation (eminently Russian). He called for an international task force in this direction and cited British support for Moldova. While not rejecting an AI regulatory framework explicitly, PM Burnham formally announced that the UK and the US are cooperating on a new AI defense partnership, for protecting critical national infrastructure at home and abroad. Although President Trump suggested a unification between Northern and Southern Ireland on September 12th, 2026, as the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s nationalist parties met in Cardiff to sign a memorandum seeking to reaffirm their rights to seek independence from the UK, potentially pressuring the UK, the newly-announced AI alliance between the UK and the US appears to infer that the Brexit and post-Brexit directions, consistent with President Trump’s ideological platform at least partially, are reinforced, and London may further realign with certain policies from Washington. The speech clearly hinted at a distancing between the UK and “European friends”, in the context of a strategic rapprochement with the US.
PM Burnham consistently denounced trade with the illegal settlements that Tel Aviv is expanding recently, emphasizing on the importance of maintaining great powers’ credibility in approaching the Palestinian Problem. This is consistent with Jordanian King Abdullah II’s remark that the global powers decided to manage the conflict from Gaza and the West Bank, not to solve it.
Probably the harshest address on the conflict from Gaza was delivered By President Erdogan, that mentioned 74000 victims due to “what we regard as acts of state terror by Israel”. He called Gaza “world’s largest graveyard for children” and “the place with the highest rate of child amputations in the world”.
While noting that increasingly more states utilized the term “terror” in addresses to UNGA (157 encounters in various forms of the term “terror”, counted in the transcripts of UNGA addresses), in various contexts, solutions proposed depended on the context. Türkiye’s President called for increased regional ownership.
Iran’s President called his countrymen “victims of terrorism”, stating those who perpetrate terror, he said, are perpetrating crimes in Iran. He presented to the General Assembly pictures with children playing in two schools before being killed by US and Israeli bombings, and in one of the instances added a picture of children’s burial vaults from a cemetery.
In a coordinated or uncoordinated action with Serbia, the Russian Federation appears to emphasize on the injustice committed by Western powers towards Serbia through recognition of Kosovo, a topic Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić disseminated in detail alongside the unauthorized 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia while drawing a parallel between Kosovo and Ukraine. President Vučić notably cautioned nations from the Global South to be very careful when signing agreements with major global powers, invoking the experience of Serbia with broken treaties.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov further emphasized on Nazism, Western’s role in the war on Ukraine, and called out unrestricted competition among global powers, accusing Europeans of preventing dialogue. While promoting a multipolar world and BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, FM Lavrov suggested that it was time to solve the core issue in the Middle East, i.e. the Palestinian statehood.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy focused his address on targeting Russian economy, the high number of Russian troops killed on the battlefront, but notably requested an energy ceasefire amid an increasing confrontation on its territory.
Probably the most encompassing, future-oriented, and cooperation-focused address was that of China through Vice-President Han Zheng. While calling for an immediate lifting of blockade on Cuba and calling for the resolution of conflicts from Ukraine and the Gaza Strip (notably, no mention of Iran), China put forward two important initiatives: the Global Development Initiative presented by President XI Jinping at the 76th UNGA session, and the hosting of Global Governance Forum in Xiong’an in October 2026. Unlike most other cooperation calls, which stress the importance of working with allies or mobilizing the Global South, China’s address appears to present the most encompassing and systematic invitation for global coordinated action.
4. Brief conclusions
This analysis reviewed a series of positions at the 81st UNGA session, emphasizing particularly on the position of the US as a host and traditionally leader in global cooperation. Particularly since 2016, the US appears to be increasingly impeded in its mission of driving global governance, despite having won the Cold War. During Clinton Era, the US refused to ratify major global governance treaties like the Kyoto Protocol on climate change or the Rome Statute (International Criminal Court recognition). During Bush administration, the US approached a “new unilateralism”, and since 2017, an America First doctrine appears to increase the distance between the US and globally negotiated consensus on various challenges, like the AI race or the war on Iran.
The Russian Federation appears to maintain a Cold-War-like reactive stance, gradually increasing the scale of war in Ukraine but still in a reactive manner. Its posture is nowhere near the power competition unraveling between the US and China, a visible bipolar confrontation called out by France at the 81st UNGA session.
Most members of the Assembly expressed their increasing demands of reforming the UN system, but to essentially maintain it. This emphasizes the success the organization achieved until recent years, but also on the members’ inability to drive this reform under existing conditions. While China and its BRICS partners appear to build a looser but developing separate cooperation framework, it also advocates for reforming the UN system. However, while almost all members advocate for a UN reform, they all have, besides common goals, their own agendas.
After more than a decade since the French-Mexican Initiative on Veto Restraint, the ACT Group Code of Conduct (Lichtenstein, launched in 2015) and the Lichtenstein-championed Veto Initiative Resolution from 2022 (A/RES/76/262), triggering a General Assembly debate within 10 days from any permanent member veto, the UN and its Security Council remain a rigid, unadapted instrument that does not fulfill the role of preventing increasingly visible human catastrophes, in conflicts such as the ones from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Ukraine, Iran, Sudan and other unraveling conflicts.
As the number and volume of contesting voices increase, and the rearmament race accelerates, swift international action may be required in order to safeguard the best parts of UN legacy and the already-fragile future of humanity that requires increased cooperation rather than a new global confrontation to legitimize a new cooperation framework.
Cover image credits: Nils Huenerfuerst via Unsplash. For illustrative purposes only.
Ecaterina MATOI is the President of Strategic Dialogue for Global Affairs Initiative