Trump carries his battles to the United Nations General Assembly

Donald Trump has arrived in New York ready for battle. On Tuesday he will speak at the UN General Assembly at a moment when problems are piling up at home — with inflation showing no respite and polls predicting bad news for Republicans in the midterm elections — and in the Middle East, where Yemen’s Houthi rebels threaten to spread the region’s war further. The military venture Trump launched in Iran, from which he now appears unsure how to extricate himself, will be one of the focal points at the United Nations this week. “We expect the president will highlight how he has and his administration have confronted complex problems head-on around the world. […] He will touch on the importance of ensuring that Iran never has a ​nuclear weapon,” U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said on Friday.

Attention in the coming days will also focus on scheduled meetings with world leaders of different political stripes, from Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Trump is also formulating, several U.S. media outlets have reported, plans to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC), though it is unclear when he intends to announce those measures.

Last year the Republican slammed his fist on the table with a UN speech, mounting a wholesale rejection of multilateralism, claiming, among other things, that the fight against climate change was one of the greatest scams in history. “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders,” he said, adding that some countries — he did not specify which — were “going to hell” because of immigration while accusing the UN, without providing evidence, of financing waves of migrants to cross illegally into the United States. French President Emmanuel Macron felt compelled to respond with a fiery defense of multilateralism against the law of the jungle. Around 130 heads of state and government are expected to attend the General Assembly.

Now, outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and Reuters report that the Republican administration is finalizing sweeping measures against one of the main international justice bodies, the ICC, based in The Hague. If those threats are carried out, Trump would step up pressure to dismantle the court after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-defense minister, Yoav Gallant, two years ago, finding “reasonable grounds” to believe both bear criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza since October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The sanctions, according to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal and statements from senior U.S. officials, would bar most transactions with the court, which would be given a six- to seven-month grace period. The measure could paralyze the ICC by preventing it from conducting operations in dollars, thereby isolating it from much of the global financial system.

Trump will deliver his UN speech shortly after meeting at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor of New York, with current officeholder Zohran Mamdani. In July, the city’s Democratic mayor had told Netanyahu, whom he labeled “a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide,” that he was not welcome in the city. Mamdani then urged the Trump administration to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant for the Israeli leader if he set foot on U.S. soil to speak at the UN. Trump made it clear he would not comply with Mamdani’s request under any circumstances and that Netanyahu would have full freedom of movement within U.S. territory.

In recent days Mamdani has softened his rhetoric regarding Netanyahu’s presence in New York. With the city’s police department preparing for large demonstrations outside the United Nations during the Israeli leader’s visit, Mamdani has said his priority is public safety and keeping the city moving, rather than taking part in the protests.

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