United State President Donald Trump addressing the UNGA on September 23, 2025.
Trump’s Gaza Ultimatum Stirs UN Divide
New York: The United States President, Donald J. Trump, denounced Palestinian statehood moves by the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and Portugal as rewarding the group’s 2023 attack that killed over 1,200 in Israel.
Speaking at the 80th United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2025, he demanded Hamas release 48 hostages or face Israeli annihilation. He urged, “Release the hostages now!” His call echoed Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s warning earlier in the day that Hamas must surrender, disarm, and free all captives—20 believed alive, 28 deceased—or face an Israeli assault on its Gaza City leadership.
Trump’s first UNGA speech since his 2024 reelection, disrupted by a faulty teleprompter and escalator he mocked as UN dysfunction, blasted the body’s “empty words” on Ukraine, Gaza, and Haiti. “What is the purpose of the United Nations? All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter, and then never follow that letter up,” he said. “Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often, it is actually creating new problems for us to solve… The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders… The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them.”
As a private citizen and real estate developer in 2005, Trump testified before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee, offering to oversee the UN headquarters renovation for $500-700 million—far below the $1.2-1.6 billion estimate—promising high-quality materials like marble floors, but the proposal was rejected. The project, starting in 2008, cost over $2 billion, which Trump called a “far inferior product.” Rubio, in September 23 interviews on Fox & Friends, CBS Mornings, NBC’s Today, and ABC’s Good Morning America, echoed this critique, questioning, “Why do we still have a UN? It’s pretty good at spending a lot of money… but not a lot of good, important action is happening.”
Rubio detailed Trump’s ultimatum: “It may take a while, but they’re not going to survive the Israeli push,” he told Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt, Brian Kilmeade, and Lawrence Jones, stressing Gaza’s reconstruction awaits Hamas’s end: “That work can’t begin until the hostages are released and Hamas no longer exists.” He dismissed statehood moves by the UK, France, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and Portugal, telling CBS’s Tony Dokoupil, “It made it even harder to get Hamas to enter into concessions… It’s a reward for Hamas,” citing the October 7, 2023, massacre. On NBC’s ‘Today with Craig Melvin’, Rubio said, “You’re never going to have peace in that region as long as groups like Hamas exist,” warning of a “narrow window” before Israeli advances. He rebuffed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claim that Trump “doesn’t get it done,” stating, “The only leader in the world that has any chance of bringing it to an end is President Trump,” noting U.S. mediation’s draw, including Erdogan’s planned White House visit.
Trump’s wider UNGA remarks stirred global reactions. He claimed to have ended “seven un-endable wars” in seven months, citing deals between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Thailand and Cambodia, Egypt and Ethiopia, Serbia and Kosovo, and Israel and Iran—though analysts note some were tensions, not wars, with mixed results. “It’s too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations,” he said, dismissing Nobel Peace Prize talk: “What I care about is not winning prizes, it’s saving lives.” He touted a U.S. “Golden Age” with “the strongest economy, borders, military, friendships, and spirit,” claiming zero illegal border crossings: “If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back.”
Trump accused China and India of funding Russia’s war in Ukraine through oil purchases, urging NATO allies like France, Germany, and Belgium to cut energy ties, despite U.S. tariffs, including a 50% levy on India – “China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil — but inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy.”
.@POTUS: In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs… But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations would have to join us in adopting the exact same… pic.twitter.com/b4WvZ7dC1F
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 23, 2025
“The challenge with trade is much the same as with climate: the countries that followed the rules, all their factories have been plundered… by countries that broke the rules. That’s why the United States is now applying tariffs to other countries,” he said.
Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, present in New York for the UNGA but not publicly responding to this specific claim, had addressed similar accusations in August 2025. On August 21 in New Delhi, during a media interaction with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Jaishankar said, “India was not the biggest importer of Russian oil… I am perplexed as New Delhi’s purchase of oil from the US had in fact increased,” defending imports as stabilizing global markets. At the ‘Economic Times World Leadership Forum’ in New Delhi on August 23, he added, “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it… It is in our national interest but it is also in a global interest,” rejecting U.S. pressure. No direct UNGA rebuttal from Jaishankar was reported by September 24, 2025, though he met Rubio on September 23 in New York, discussing trade and oil issues without public details beyond a neutral X post on “bilateral and international issues.” China’s UN envoy, Fu Cong, dismissed Trump’s claim as “economic scapegoating” during UNGA sidelines, consistent with Beijing’s defence of its energy trade.
The U.S. President warned France, Germany, and Belgium that open borders would lead to collapse: “Your countries are going to hell,” citing crime and child trafficking: “Any system that results in the mass trafficking of children is inherently evil.” He called green energy a “con job,” warning, “If you don’t get away from the ‘green energy’ scam, your country is going to fail,” and vowed to eradicate drug smugglers: “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States, please be warned—we will blow you out of existence,” referencing U.S. strikes on Venezuelan cartels. He pushed a global biological weapons ban and defended “the most persecuted religion—Christianity.”
Hamas has not issued a public response to Trump’s demands in the hours following his September 23 UNGA speech, though the group has consistently rejected similar unconditional hostage release calls in prior negotiations, insisting on a permanent ceasefire, full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and prisoner exchanges. In ongoing Doha talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt, Hamas has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging efforts, including a September 9 strike in Doha that killed six, including a Qatari officer. Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned the strike in his own UNGA speech, urging UN Charter-based security. Erdogan labeled Israel’s Gaza operations “genocide” and advocated broader statehood recognition. French President Emmanuel Macron warned Trump’s stance risks derailing a France-Saudi-led two-state conference backed by over 150 UN members, including Canada, Australia, and Portugal. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended their statehood votes as peace-driven, citing Gaza’s humanitarian toll. Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro urged diplomacy, while Belgium’s UN envoy warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe.” The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy called for restored aid, aligning with France.
U.S. aid cuts to Gaza, under State Department oversight, drew fire. Rubio, pressed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on claims “no one has died” from the policy, blamed gang theft, despite UN reports of famine and disease outbreaks killing thousands indirectly. Rubio insisted, “No one has died because the United States has cut aid… People have died because gangs steal the aid,” defending USAID’s restructuring under the State Department for more effective delivery.
Trump deflected, blaming nations like China. UN Secretary-General António Guterres decried “relentless human suffering,” advocating multilateralism. Protests outside UN headquarters decried alleged genocide in Gaza and U.S. complicity. With Hamas yet to respond to Trump’s latest call, Israel signalling operations, and allies like the UK, France, Canada, Australia, Portugal, and Belgium pushing diplomacy, the U.S. faces isolation. He rebuked the “destructive globalism that has fueled endless conflict and chaos around the world” and was unapologetic in proclaiming American strength as he unveiled a “bold vision for sovereign nations to unite against the true threats of terrorism, unchecked migration, biological warfare, and loss of cultural identity”.
Will Trump’s pressure yield peace, or deepen Gaza’s crisis?
– global bihari bureau
