Trump threatens to ‘annihilate’ Iran in combative UN address
US president uses speech to menace Tehran, condemn recognition of Palestinian state and cast migration and climate action as threats to West
UNITED NATIONS (MNTV) — US President Donald Trump used his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 22 to threaten the destruction of Iran, denounce countries that have recognised a Palestinian state, and portray migration and climate action as assaults on Western societies, in a speech that placed Muslim-majority nations and migrants squarely in his sights.
The sharpest moment came on Iran.
Trump told the assembly he faced a stark choice over the Islamic Republic: “Will a deal be made with Iran … or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly?”
He predicted Washington and Tehran would eventually reach an agreement — but only after November’s US midterm elections, accusing Iran of stalling talks to gauge his political standing.
“The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said, insisting the vote would not shape his policy.
The threat lands against the backdrop of a war that has already been fought.
A joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran began in February and killed thousands before a Pakistani- and Qatari-mediated framework, agreed in Islamabad in June, briefly paused the fighting before collapsing. Trump’s “annihilate” remark, delivered from the UN podium, drew condemnation from officials in Tehran and unease from other delegations, who have warned repeatedly against a return to open conflict in the Gulf.
On Palestine, Trump condemned the wave of governments — including Britain, France, Canada and Australia — that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state, casting the recognitions as a reward for Hamas rather than a response to the devastation in Gaza, where local authorities say Israel’s genocide has killed more than 73,000 people.
Rights bodies and a UN commission of inquiry have described that campaign as genocide, a characterisation Israel rejects. Trump made no such reference, instead defending his administration’s handling of the conflict and its role in ceasefire diplomacy.
Much of the rest of the address was aimed at migrants and multilateral institutions.
Trump argued that UN-backed asylum programmes were “funding an assault on Western countries” and urged governments to seal their borders, saying troubled nations should be fixed rather than left to send people abroad.
He repeated a false claim that parts of London operate under Sharia law — an assertion the office of Mayor Sadiq Khan, Britain’s most prominent Muslim politician, dismissed as bigoted and declined to dignify with a detailed response.
Trump also dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” rejecting renewable energy as a drain on developed economies, and told the chamber that the UN was falling far short of its promise.
“The UN has such tremendous potential … but it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential,” he said.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, without naming Trump, stressed that cooperation for peace remained paramount despite disagreements.
For Muslim-majority states, migrant communities and Palestinians, the speech offered little reassurance: an American president signalling that the threat of force against Iran remains on the table, that recognition of Palestinian statehood will meet US resistance, and that the movement of people across borders will be framed, from the world’s most prominent diplomatic stage, as a danger to be repelled.
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