Summary:
President Donald Trump delivered a wide-ranging address to the 81st United Nations General Assembly on 22 September 2026, marking the United States' 250th anniversary. His speech asserted a narrative of restored American strength, detailing domestic accomplishments, conflict resolutions, ongoing global challenges, and a direct critique of international institutions. Trump framed Iran's future as a stark choice between reconstruction or swift destruction, highlighted the ongoing war in Ukraine, and announced major diplomatic and military initiatives shaping US foreign policy and global engagement.
He recounted ending the Gaza war and securing hostages' release, listed eight conflicts he said had been settled, and detailed efforts regarding Venezuela, drug cartels, Cuba, and Greenland. He sharply criticised the United Nations for budget issues, a proposed shipping tax, and the International Criminal Court, while renaming artificial intelligence "super intelligence" to reflect American leadership in the field.
Detailed Report
1. From a "Dark Age" to a Golden Age: Trump's Account of His Term So Far
President Trump opened the address by welcoming the world to America in the 250th year of independence and declaring that the country was stronger than it had ever been. "Our economy is the envy of the world. Our military is the most powerful on earth. Our technology is second to none," he said. America, he reported with pride, was back.
He recited a domestic scoreboard. More than one million private-sector jobs had been created since he took office, and more Americans were working than ever before, he said. The poverty rate had reached its lowest level in American history, with 1.5 million people lifted out of poverty last year, and African-American and Hispanic American poverty rates at all-time lows. Real household income had reached $87,000 on average, above the record of his first term. Stock markets had set 80 all-time records in 12 months, and investment commitments from abroad stood at $21 trillion, against less than $1 trillion in the previous four years.
He turned to the border and crime. The United States now had the most secure border in its history, he said, and in the past 16 months zero illegal aliens had been admitted. Last year had produced the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded, the murder rate was at its lowest in 125 years, and operations in Memphis and New Orleans had cut crime by more than 80% in each city. Crime in Washington was down 87%, he said — "and we're going for 100."
He said the administration had invested more in the armed forces in 12 months than ever before and that spending for the term would be $1.5 trillion.
"We inherited a dark age of America from the previous administration and we turned it into the golden age of America."
2. Iran Given the Choice: Rebuild Under a Deal, or Annihilation
Trump turned from the domestic record to Iran, which he called the clearest case of a danger left to gather strength at the world's peril — "the number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran." The regime had been the bully of the Middle East, he said, "but they are the bully no more." His position had not wavered: "I will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
He said he had opened negotiations on taking office and offered full economic cooperation in exchange for an end to the nuclear programme and support for terror.
"They refused. They absolutely refused. That was a big mistake."
In Operation Midnight Hammer, he said, the US military had "obliterated their nuclear program beneath mountains of rubble." He urged a deal again, and Tehran refused again, he said. Iran had kept building a missile and drone stockpile that could threaten American forces and Europe, its aim being to finish a nuclear bomb behind a conventional ballistic-missile shield.
He tied the file to 11 September 2001, "the worst terror attack in history," a few miles from the hall, and to the 7 October 2023 attack in Israel, which he said Iran had funded. He said Iran's supreme leader had called that massacre a service to humanity, and that the same regime had slaughtered more than 72,000 of its own citizens this year, 10,000 of them for protesting.
He then described Operation Epic Fury and listed what he said it had destroyed.
"As a result of Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of their Navy are now lying at the bottom of the sea."
He said the air force, radar and anti-aircraft equipment were gone, missile and drone manufacturing was almost gone, and the economy was gone.
"The only thing that isn't gone is inflation, which is destroying their country and is now well over 300%."
He said Iran had violated a ceasefire agreed for nuclear talks with attacks on civilian shipping.
He thanked the Security Council for a resolution condemning those attacks, and said the text had drawn more co-sponsors than any Security Council resolution in history. He said the United States Navy had escorted more than one billion barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz, that more oil was moving than at any point since the war began, and that a united economic isolation of Iran would send oil prices "plummeting down."
Then came the choice, as he framed it.
"Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world?"
"Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?"
"Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?"
He said he believed a deal would be made after the election because it did not make sense for Iran to refuse, and that Tehran was waiting to see how he did in the midterm election.
"What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already and won in a landslide."
"I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn't even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon."
He denied that the United States was low on munitions. "We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using," he said, with 18 plants under construction and stockpiles growing faster than ever. His call to the hall was for collective pressure:
"I call on all nations to join us in enforcing the complete economic isolation of Iran until they stop their attacks on commercial shipping, relinquish their nuclear ambitions, and cease their support of terror."
The United States and Iran would get it done, he said, one way or the other.
3. We Ended the War in Gaza: Hostages Returned and a Council Mandate
Trump told the assembly that a year earlier the war in Gaza had still been raging and the hostages had still been in Hamas tunnels, with no end in sight.
"But here on the sidelines of the General Assembly, we took the first steps. It changed everything."
A few weeks later, he said, the war was over.
"A few weeks later, we ended the war in Gaza, saving untold thousands of lives. We also brought home all remaining hostages, both living and dead. Every single one of them."
He thanked the Security Council for a unanimous endorsement of a 20-point Gaza peace plan and for approving a Board of Peace, which he said he chaired and which nearly 30 countries had joined. He named Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan among those that had put money into relief, and Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Jordan among those that had committed troops, police or training to stabilise Gaza.
4. Trump Lists Eight Wars He Says He Settled
Settling wars, Trump said, had been the work of his term. It had been his honour since taking office to settle eight of them, he told the assembly, and the tool had been personal relationships, trade, tariffs and the threat of tariffs. The pairs he then named were Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the war in Gaza.
He read thanks from the leaders. The prime minister of Pakistan had written that "Donald Trump was responsible for saving 30 million lives and probably many more than that," and the president of Azerbaijan had said that "President Trump in six months did a miracle." He quoted the prime minister of Armenia:
"This breakthrough would simply not have been possible without President Trump's personal engagement and his resolute commitment to peace."
5. The War Not Yet Settled: Trump Puts Ukraine's Cost at 25,000 Lives a Month
Trump told the assembly the United States was working closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to end the war, and put its monthly cost at 25,000 young people — mostly soldiers, on both sides.
"I look at those battlefield pictures and I really don't want to see them anymore."
It would be done, he said, "more quickly than people understand." Last week, he told the hall, he had signed a law passed by Congress, in honour of Senator Lindsey Graham, that gave him enormous new tariff authorities — "and if necessary, I will have to use them."
"It's time to stop the killing."
6. The Western Hemisphere: Maduro Arrested, Cartels Struck, Cuba Told It Will Fall
Trump told the hall that in January, at his direction, the United States military had gone into Caracas, descended on a heavily defended and fortified military base, and arrested Nicolás Maduro — "the outlaw dictator, real criminal." Hundreds of Venezuelan political prisoners had since been freed, and Washington was working with Venezuela's leaders on a different future. Last month the two sides had signed "the largest oil deal in history," he said, covering 65 billion barrels. Together, the United States and Venezuela held more than 60% of the world's oil.
"It was a war, but it's perhaps the biggest deal ever made to the victor along the spoils."
He said the Caracas operation had a wider meaning.
"Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States."
He had designated the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organisations.
"The cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere."
"Like ISIS, they should be killed, exiled, or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we're doing."
Dozens of strikes on cartel boats, he said, had destroyed 97% of the drugs moving by sea, and three months ago the United States had terminated the leader of Tren de Aragua. Mexico, he said, must reclaim its soil.
"Mexico must reclaim control of its soil from the enemies of humanity."
Relations with the Mexican government were good, he told the hall — "They don't want the cartels either."
On Cuba, he said the communist government was under the greatest pressure it had ever faced.
"It's an absolutely failed state. It's failing like never before and it will fall."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was deep in negotiations, he said — "Let's see what happens." Havana, he told the hall, had "cultivated ties to subversive and radical groups such as the Communist Party USA, Antifa, and the Democrat Socialists of America."
"Communism will never be coming to America, but freedom will be coming to Cuba, and safety and security will be coming to Mexico."
7. A Greenland Pact for Signature That Day: Permanent US Control Declared
Trump told the assembly the United States had reached an agreement with the Kingdom of Denmark and with Greenland. He said the pact gave Washington permanent control over security and all other needs on that territory.
"No US adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland anymore or make sensitive investments there without our express written approval."
"We will immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence in the appropriate locations. We will be building two very major military bases."
He said the agreement would be signed later that day and that it would protect Europe as well as America and strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
8. Trump Claims the Deepest Reform in UN History: A Budget Cut, 4,000 Posts Gone, a Global Tax Blocked
Trump opened his account against the United Nations with a claim of sweeping reform. With Ambassador Michael Waltz in post, he said, Washington had carried out "the most sweeping UN reforms in history" — the first budget cut in the organisation's history, a 15% reduction in 2026, and the elimination of more than 4,000 posts from the UN bureaucracy.
"The United Nations has great potential. But it must stop imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats who nobody ever elected."
His administration had also stopped the International Maritime Organisation from secretly establishing a first-ever global carbon tax, he said — a tax that would have raised shipping costs by 10 to 20% or more.
"There is no global government and while president there will be no global taxes."
9. No Right to Illegal Migration: Trump's Attack on the UN's Courts and Rights Regime
Trump said the United States opposed the International Criminal Court, and would never allow US service members or anyone else to be investigated or given "show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us."
"I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately."
UN human-rights officials, he said, spent their time criticising the United States for blocking what he called transgender mutilation of children and for enforcing immigration law, while having little to say about the persecution of Christians. "Christians are being persecuted all over the world," he said. "It's not even believable."
"They want the worst people to come in from the worst places on earth. And we don't do it anymore."
UNESCO claimed to protect cultural heritage, he told the hall, while the ceaseless promotion of mass migration was "actively destroying the greatest cultures and most extraordinary heritage in all of history."
"There is no human right to illegal immigration, but there is a right to remain a sovereign nation and we want to remain a sovereign nation and so should you."
10. "Super Intelligence": Trump Renames the Technology and Rejects Global Control
Trump said the United States rejected any global scheme to control artificial intelligence, and that the word "artificial" made the technology sound fake. From this point, he said, US documents — and he hoped the world's — would use "super intelligence," or SI.
"In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence — SI."
The same people who had warned that the planet would end in 12 years from global warming, he said, were now warning that AI would kill everyone — and whoever won super intelligence would win. The United States was leading China by a large margin, he said, and would not stifle a technology he compared to the industrial revolution and the internet. The Department of Justice, he said, would oversee the field to ensure it proceeded safely and responsibly.
"We will only encourage super intelligence. We're going to encourage it, not rein it in."
Conclusion
Trump's address to the assembly covered the full sweep of his term as he tells it: a golden age at home, eight wars settled, and a United States acting in the hemisphere, the Arctic and the Middle East where others had only spoken.