With the war with Iran approaching its eighth month and continuing to affect global oil prices and stability across the Middle East, President Donald Trump addressed world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.
The gathering marks the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. Its central event, the general debate, begins Tuesday and will feature speeches from Trump, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Trump is also scheduled to meet Tuesday with Gulf leaders, many of whom have felt the war’s economic fallout. The talks come after Yemen’s Houthis targeted Saudi Arabia, a development that could place additional pressure on global gas prices.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz discussed the planned meeting during an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He said Trump “truly values hearing from them and hearing their concerns” firsthand.
Waltz said the leaders are expected to discuss attacks on cargo vessels in crucial maritime corridors, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
“… What you will see at the U.N. General Assembly is a lot of discussion of the freedom of the seas, the U.N. law of the sea, freedom of navigation. Whether it’s Straits of Hormuz, the Bab al-Mandab, Suez Canal, Panama Canal, Malacca Straits, we must have free and open commerce,” Waltz said.
The conflict, which Trump initially said would last four to six weeks, is now nearing its eighth month. During the summit, the president is expected to hear from numerous world leaders seeking a path toward ending the war.
Senior Iranian officials are expected to attend the assembly. The delegation’s full makeup has not been publicly released, but U.S. officials said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will be permitted to participate. For now, Trump has no plans to meet with Iranian officials.
The summit follows the release of a U.N. report that found “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States carried out two strikes in Iran that caused civilian casualties. The attacks, which hit a girls’ school and a sports center, provided “reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack resulting in loss of life or injury to civilians,” the report said.
A State Department official rejected the report’s conclusions, saying they “do not give credibility” to its findings.
“The Trump Administration formally withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council following the Council’s consistent failures to uphold its own ‘values’ as it pushes anti-American rhetoric and antisemitism, all while it appeases repressive regimes, thus making a mockery of the very ‘rights’ it claims to protect,” the State Department official said. “As such, we do not give credibility to findings [sic] this report.”
On Monday, Trump is scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The president will also meet Monday with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion.
Trump is expected to use the summit to hold talks with a broad group of the United States’ key allies.
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Among the meetings on Tuesday will be a face-to-face discussion with Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, in a pull-aside meeting.
It will be the first in-person meeting between the leaders since a U.S. operation in Venezuela captured then-President Nicolas Maduro. The encounter comes only weeks after Washington and Caracas reached a landmark oil agreement giving the U.S. government majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
“The peace track is our number one priority. There are ideas for de-escalation steps and for addressing fundamental security issues – energy security, food security, and the protection of human life. We are working together with the American team and are ready to take really serious steps,” Zelenskyy wrote in the post.
Trump will also sign a recently announced security agreement Tuesday with the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland during a New York ceremony, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
The president is also expected to talk about the progress on his 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
The president's keynote address will talk about how the president has "confronted complex problems head-on around the world" and to tout the peace deals he's made or is trying to achieve," Waltz said in a call with reporters on Friday.
Though the president has helped to broker ceasefires among various nations, conflict in some of those areas has largely continued; there were no long-term treaties ratified among the nations; and some nations even dispute that Trump did anything to help. Long-term, unresolved tensions still exist among many of the nations.
"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, including in the Western Hemisphere, progress on the president's 20-point peace plan in Gaza, and more," Waltz said.