It is a whirlpool. More than 140 leaders go to the general debate and participate, in parallel, in countless days, conferences and debates. Diplomacy playing its World Cup in Manhattan. The first day, yesterday, it came strong, because the president of the United States, Donald Trump, the host, eager to speak after his return to the White House. He did not disappoint. We saw the Republican more, offensive, despising the UN work and shooting at a system, multilateralism, on which the planet has risen since World War II.
But there was much more, of the great expected themes, such as Gaza, to helm in conflicts such as Ukraine. Also a defense of another world, different from the Trumpist, criticism of his tariffs and messages of understanding. There was no lack of breakdowns (Karma wanted Trump to be touched and his wife, Melania) and controversies about the purchases they may or may not do in New York the emissaries of countries like Iran.
This is the summary of the lived, waiting for the intervention of today of the Spanish king, Felipe, and the traca of the Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday.
Gaza, the heart
Israel’s offensive against Gaza, which leaves more than 65,000 killed already, was in the heart of the day. From the first phrases of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil and first to intervene in the Assembly, the damn word, “”, was in the gallery. One of the first leaders ordered by the embargo on weapons to Israel, made it clear that we attended an attempt to delete the Palestinian people and their disappearance is close, if the world does not intervene.
Trump came later, demonstrating that he continues to deserve Israel’s best friend’s label, criticizing the avalanche of recognition of the state of Palestine (156 countries already, surpassing 80% of the world) because they are, he says, “a reward for terrorists” of Hamas.
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, uploaded the tone by proposing “joining armies and weapons” to “free Palestine” and propose the creation of a “army of salvation” voted by the UN and without veto, a call that added intensity to the debate.
Other leaders such as King Abdalá II of Jordan and the presidents of Türkiye, Recep Erdogan; From Chile, Gabriel Boric, demanded a fire, humanitarian aid and legal responses, and the Uruguayan Yamandú Orsi claimed the release of hostages and the immediate cessation of hostilities. For most countries that intervened, the solution of two states and a high immediate fire are urgent conditions to stop the humanitarian catastrophe.
Out of tribune, but in an interview with the thread of the debate, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said that Benjamín Netanyahu “no longer has a project”, because the total war “does not work”, and saw the pressure that Trump may exert to stop the conflict. To convince him. “I see an American president who is mobilized, who has said it again in La Tribuna (‘I want peace, I have fixed seven conflicts’), who wants the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize
Ukraine, change of speech
Some of the surprises of the day was given by a bilateral encounter between Trump and the president of Ukraine ,. To its term, the American said that the country invaded by Russia, which is estimated at 20% of the soil. Why is it new? Because the tycoon has always defended, since he launched the negotiating process with Moscow in February, that kyiv was going to have to give in, starting with Crimea and following the four regions that he has partially taken by his aggressor today. I told Zelenski to say, basically. Now, it seems that he trusts his possibilities and his sovereign right.
As expected, the turn has excited Ukraine. “Very positive”, a “great change,” says its president, who hopes to receive the financial and military aid you need to deal with those of. Those that advance in the east every day while they take peace negotiations. A situation when That they do very well.
The president of France, Macron, celebrated what he read as a turn in Trump’s speech on Ukraine and defended that Russian economic weakening can accelerate the end of the conflict. It was another of the novelties, which Trump raised to harm the rubles to Putin. We need to see how.
Swag
The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, is being one of the few world leaders who refuses to bend his head before the US tariff demands. They both have an open commercial war, because Brasilia has chosen to respond to Trump with the same currency. Yesterday, without shrinking, he opened the session claiming fairer rules and greater prominence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the use of commercial sanctions as a political tool.
The imposition by the US of 50 % tariffs on Brazilian imports was one of the axes of the contrast between both leaders, and other leaders – like the South African Cyril Ramaphosa and the Portuguese Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa – warned about the use of trade “as a weapon”. The Trump administration imposed 50 % tariffs on Brazilian imports as punishment for the trial against Bolsonaro, a narrow ally of Trump, sentenced to 27 years in jail for trying a coup d’etat.
Trump and Lula crossed the UN corridors and agreed to meet next week. The US president said there was an “excellent chemistry” between them. “I must tell you that I was entering and the leader of Brazil leaving. We saw each other, he saw me, and we hugged each other,” Trump revealed. “It seemed like a very kind man, I would really like to meet him. I only do business with people that I like,” he added.
However, the denunciation of the Brazilian of an “international disorder” and the unilateral measures that, they said, violate Brazil’s sovereignty by (2019-2022) resonates in the room. Trump has talked about witch hunting to his friend and it is clear that he squeezes the nuts with commercial rates as punishment.
The transformation
On swallowing or not swallowing, also in the background the debate on the majorities in the UN and its impositions. Macron took the opportunity to claim a reform of the Security Council – including greater African representation – and rejected the logic of blocks that contrast the G7 and the BRICS, asking to return to international cooperation to face global challenges. The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, requested that the next secretary general be Latin American and warned about the renewal of “totalitarianism with other faces.”
The idea that the UN has to transform, which cannot maintain the scheme of the winners of World War II, is common when the planet is another. The problem is the clash of visions: the so -called Global South is clear that Máz Voz and more integration wants but, nevertheless, Trump was all contempt against an organization that sees obsolete. He lashed out at his hosts because he has “contributed” to world pacification. He questioned the purpose of the organization, stating that it had enormous potential, but that it was not fulfilling it. Everything he does, he said, is to write energetic letters that do not follow up. The empty words, he said, did not end the wars.
Trump accused the UN of not having “helped” stop them, to limit himself to write “very energetic letters” and spread “lies” about the climate. Later, in a bilateral meeting with the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, he clarified his position and said that the US supports the organization “100 %”.
He also attacked the UN for the aid provided to asylum seekers who wanted to enter the United States, stating: “The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create or finance them.” A reproach that also made to his allies? Europeans, to which he said to pass the page of open doors policies. That you are dumb, he lacked to say, before the immigration invasion.
The stairs and the teleprompter …
The pepper of the day also had to do with Trump, because a rebellion of the machines tried to complicate the intervention. The US president opened his intervention with ironies about the functioning of the UN headquarters, because he was caught in mechanical stairs and that the teleprompter in which he had to read his speech failed, using it as a metaphor to question the effectiveness of the organism. “The UN only gave me a defective electric ladder and a teleprompter that doesn’t work,” he literally said. Then came the show, without jokes.
The White House did not settle for the anecdote and asked to investigate whether the breakdown was intentionally, while after several hours of investigation, the UN spokesman’s office explained that a cameraman who accompanied the Trump rose on the same staircase in order to document his arrival and, upon arriving up, ahead of them, “he could have activated without realizing a security mechanism.” It was his people, but the apology did not arrive.
… And luxury purchases
In addition, the United States government has officially forbidden that Iran diplomats found in New York by the assembly can acquire products in wholesale stores or in luxury stores. They are not allowed to access this type of establishments. According to the notice, if an Iran official wants to buy something in these stores, he must obtain a special permit in the Office of Foreign Missions of the State Department and thus be able to “buy luxury items” while they are in the United States.
For his part, the spokesman for the State Department, Tommy Pigott, published in his X account that they will not allow “the Iranian regime to let their clerical elites make compulsive purchases in the United States while forceing their people in Iran to endure poverty.”
As a country that hosts the UN Headquarters, the United States has limited or tax restrictions on different countries such as Venezuela, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia, Syria, Bielorusia or North Korea. By order of the State Department the diplomats of these countries can not travel more than 40 kilometers away from the island of Manhattan.
