Trump Opens UN Speech Today as Iran War Enters Its Seventh Month and Houthis Hit Riyadh's Airport

President Donald Trump takes the podium at the UN General Assembly in New York today, Sept. 22, as the 81st General Debate opens under the theme "Restoring trust, managing transformation: A United Nations that delivers for all." By tradition, Brazil's president speaks first. Secretary-General António Guterres will give opening remarks, according to NPR, and this marks his final high-level week as secretary-general before his term ends at the end of the year.

The backdrop is grim. NPR reports the US-Iran war is now nearly seven months old, having started in late February when the US and Israel launched their campaign against Tehran. Over the weekend, Iran-backed Houthi forces struck the international airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, according to the Epoch Times, adding fresh volatility to a region already rattled by disrupted energy markets.

Iran's Delegation, Under Watch

The US granted visas to Iran's delegation, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the Epoch Times reported. But the State Department confirmed to NPR that this year's delegation is smaller than last year's, with diplomatic security agents enforcing strict limits on where Iranian officials can go and what they can buy. A White House official told the Epoch Times that Trump has no plans to meet the Iranian delegation. Pezeshkian is scheduled to address the assembly Wednesday, Sept. 23, one day after Trump.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told reporters on a call that Trump's speech will "touch on the importance of ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon," a demand Waltz said is shared by both Washington and the UN Security Council.

A Packed Sideline Schedule

Trump met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday evening in New York, Breitbart reported, citing Le Monde, just a day after Macron met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. Macron is also expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iranian President Pezeshkian while in New York, and France is convening a UN Security Council session on Ukraine that will touch on Black Sea grain exports, according to Breitbart's reporting on the French Foreign Ministry.

On the U.S. side, the Epoch Times reports Trump is set to hold bilateral meetings with Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Trump is also scheduled to have a pull-aside with Venezuela's acting president, Edmundo González, at a leaders' reception, Waltz told reporters. This would mark the first Trump-González contact since US forces captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas in January and brought him to the US on drug trafficking charges. Maduro is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, roughly 10 miles from where González will be meeting Trump.

Elsewhere on the calendar, per NPR: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addresses the assembly Sept. 26 and is expected to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines beforehand. Russian President Vladimir Putin has skipped the General Assembly for over a decade. For the second consecutive year, the Trump administration denied a visa to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The General Assembly voted to allow his prerecorded remarks anyway, scheduled for Thursday.

The Scale of It

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters the organization expects 73 heads of state, 45 heads of government, 49 ministers, 11 vice presidents and one crown prince this week, with roughly 1,000 bilateral meeting requests and 168 scheduled events, Fox News reported. Dujarric described the mood inside UN headquarters as "high stress."

Fox News also cited a new 2026 BGR Impact Index from BGR Analytics, which ranks 197 countries by their footprint in the United States across economic, cultural, diplomatic and geopolitical measures. Japan topped the list for a third straight year, followed by Germany, Canada, the UK and South Korea. Fox framed this as evidence of who's actually competing hardest for Washington's attention this week.

Two Very Different Readings of US Standing

The coverage splits sharply on US standing. Trump has said, "Our country is respected again. We're respected like never before," a claim relayed in CNN's analysis piece. CNN countered that framing directly, quoting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's remark last month that "America has changed... We cannot control the storm blowing in from Washington," and noting that European and Canadian allies are moving to build security arrangements less dependent on the US.

This is a genuine, unresolved dispute over perception and influence, not a settled fact either side can prove with a number. Trump's team points to sideline meetings, delegations seeking access, and Iran policy leverage as evidence of restored standing. Critics point to allied hedging and the stalled Iran war as evidence of the opposite. Neither claim is fully verifiable from the sourcing here, and the assembly itself won't resolve it.

One unverified claim circulating separately: a Turkish outlet reported Trump is expected to sign a security deal on Greenland during his New York trip, though no other source in this reporting cycle confirmed details, timing, or terms.

The next concrete marker comes Wednesday, when Pezeshkian and Zelenskyy both address the assembly. This will provide the first direct signal of whether either side plans to use the UN stage to shift, rather than restate, their positions.