World leaders are preparing for their 15 minutes on the world stage as the high-level week of the UN General Assembly begins on Tuesday in New York.
This year, the world body celebrates its 80th anniversary, but diplomats have little to celebrate. The UN Security Council is deadlocked over Russia’s war against Ukraine and Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The UN itself faces financial cuts, largely from the United States.
Here are some of the things we’ll be watching.
Is the UN fit for purpose in the 21st century?
This was expected to be one of the big themes of the 80th UN General Assembly, as the world body struggles to promote peace as envisioned 80 years ago. But many diplomats are worried about more mundane things, like a financial crisis, and how the UN will survive a second Trump term.
The UN’s chief humanitarian and emergency relief official, Tom Fletcher, says the UN system faces “this perfect storm: underfunded, overburdened, and under attack.” He has lost 40% of his funding since last year and humanitarian workers have been killed in record numbers, mainly in Gaza.
President Trump cut funding and withdrew the US from the World Health Organization and UNESCO. His administration rejects the UN Sustainable Development Goals — milestones to end scourges like poverty and hunger — and votes against any resolution that mentions them.
“The US is behaving incredibly petty,” says Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group, a think tank.
Anjali Dayal, a UN expert who teaches at Fordham University, says the US has gone from chief funder to a real source of instability at the UN.
“Top to bottom, major areas of UN work — things like poverty relief, things like public health, things like 
gender equality, things that fundamentally anchor the UN’s work — the US is actively working to disrupt them,” Dayal told NPR.
Palestinian recognition
Australia, Canada, Portugal, and the United Kingdom formally recognized a State of Palestine on Sunday, joining the majority of countries that have already done so, in a move opposed by the United States and Israel. Earlier this month, 142 nations endorsed a UN General Assembly resolution calling for “tangible, time-bound, and irreversible steps” toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France and Saudi Arabia are organizing a conference to rally support on the issue on Monday.
The Trump administration denounced the move and promised not to grant visas for Palestinian Authority members to attend the conference. The UNGA voted last week to allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to deliver his speech by video on Thursday. However, members of the Palestinian mission to the UN must attend the General Assembly in person.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Palestinian state recognition move “symbolic” and said it “has no impact whatsoever on bringing us closer to a Palestinian state.” He argued that it complicates negotiations and encourages Hamas. Rubio said he also warned European allies that it could lead to an “Israeli backlash.” He made the comments on a trip to Israel on September 15, days after an Israeli strike on Hamas officials in Qatar.
Israel also sees the move to recognize the Palestinian state now as a gift to Hamas, although UN Secretary-General António Guterres disagrees, saying it is a “gift to the Palestinian people who have also suffered greatly because of Hamas”.
End of Syrian isolation
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is expected to make his world stage debut with a speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, although the Islamist group he led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, remains on the UN’s terrorist blacklist. His presence will officially mark the end of decades of Syrian diplomatic isolation.
The Trump administration removed a $10 million bounty on his head and President Trump called him a “handsome and tough guy.” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire recently traveled to Syria with South Carolina Republican House member Joe Wilson to meet Sharaa and discuss lifting US sanctions, which have already been temporarily eased by President Trump.
Shaheen called it a historic opportunity for Syria after years of dictatorship under the Assad regime. “It’s an emerging central government and I think it’s important that we do everything we can to ensure the government continues to move forward positively,” she told NPR.
Israel has been much more skeptical. “When they [the Israelis] look at him [Sharaa], they see his past, not a future. And they will take security measures on their own,” says David Hale, former high-ranking State Department official who is now a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank.
Sharaa’s speech on Wednesday will be the first by a Syrian leader at the UN General Assembly since 1967, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.
Growing Chinese influence
As the US cuts funding to UN agencies and exits some of them, experts say China is stepping in — but not financially. “China won’t come with the kind of large-scale financial support that the US is now withdrawing,” says Gowan of the International Crisis Group. “The Chinese don’t really need to do that. They’re gaining influence by default because the US isn’t in the room.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping rarely attends the UNGA, though he spoke by video during the COVID-19 pandemic, like other leaders. This month, China will be represented by Premier Li Qiang, who is expected to speak on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin also avoids the UNGA, sending his long-time Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Thant Myint-U, whose grandfather, Burmese diplomat U Thant, was UN Secretary-General during the Cold War, told NPR that the UN faces a “crisis of irrelevance,” and not just because of President Trump. “Even countries that pay lip service to the UN aren’t investing much politically in the UN,” he said.
Trump’s Nobel pursuit
Although Trump has cut UN funding and dismantled the main US aid agency, he has been promoting himself for the Nobel Peace Prize and will likely continue that campaign when he takes the podium on Tuesday. His speech will be followed by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. By tradition, Brazil speaks first.
According to Trump, he resolved seven wars, including a devastating and complicated decades-long conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. “Actually, if you think pre-wars, add three more, then it would be 10,” he told journalists in the Oval Office last month. (Fact-checkers dispute the claim.)
Leaders from Rwanda and DRC will be at the UN General Assembly and both praised Trump for focusing on the issue. However, fighting continues and the conflict is far from over.
Leaders from former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan will also be present. Azerbaijan took the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, before Trump returned to office. The White House says he secured a deal on a route from Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave, which borders Turkey. They are calling it the Trump Route for Peace and International Prosperity (TRIPP).
Trump has had more difficulty bringing peace to Gaza and Ukraine, conflicts he told voters he would resolve in 24 hours.
Secretary-General Guterres said at a press conference this week that the UN General Assembly will bring nearly 150 heads of state and government to UN headquarters, “offering every possibility for dialogue and mediation.” The high-level week ends on September 29.
“Some call it the World Cup of diplomacy, but it can’t be about scoring points — it must be about solving problems,” Guterres said.
Source: npr.org by Michele Kelemen