The Latest: Trump returns to UN at moment of anxiety about Iran, AI and future of world body itself

President Donald Trump is addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday at a tumultuous moment for the world — and for his presidency. After his speech to the annual gathering of world leaders, Trump is expected to hold talks with new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and a more informal meeting with Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez, according to the White House.

Also, Trump is hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington this week as economic and tech competition escalates between the two countries. Both leaders are aiming to stabilize fragile ties, though no major agreements are expected. The meeting itself is seen as significant given the deep differences and a lack of trust between the United States and China.

Here’s the latest:

The U.S. president said he would “officially” change the name of artificial intelligence, saying the existing name makes the technology seem “fake.”

“The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing,” Trump told other world leaders at the United Nations.

It’s not clear yet if there was an official order making the change, but it would likely mean adjusting the name of the “AI Force” that Trump announced this weekend to the “SI Force.”

The president said at the U.N. that from this “point forward,” U.S. government documents “will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial. So it’s super intelligence.”

During his United Nations speech, Trump denied the U.S. military is running low on advanced weapons because of the Iran war. But that has been contradicted by experts and allies alike.

“We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using, and we’re building them at levels that we have never done before,” Trump said.

Experts, however, say weapons stockpiles are diminishing and that it’ll take years to replenish Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as Patriot and THAAD missile interceptors.

Depleted stockpiles have caused alarm in Europe, where U.S. and NATO officials have told The Associated Press there is a “beyond critical” shortage of missile interceptors. Saudi Arabia also is running low on interceptors and has turned to allies for help.

The U.S. president pledged in his speech at the United Nations’ General Assembly that Russia’s war in Ukraine would soon end.

“We’re working very closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, and we will get that one done,” Trump said. “It’s going to happen, I think, more quickly than people understand.”

The war began in early 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly suggested peace was at hand since returning to the White House in 2025, only for the conflict to continue.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump asked.

“Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

The president continued: “Do I drive them into hell?”

Trump said he believes Tehran will “make a deal right after the election” in November.

Trump says he’s not worried that the war in Iran will undermine the Republican Party’s chances in the midterm elections. In fact, he says, the election “doesn’t even enter my mind” when it comes to Iran.

Polling suggests the unpopular war is making it more difficult for the GOP to maintain control of Congress. Republicans in some states have also started to speak out against the war.

Still, Trump insisted Tuesday that he’s not concerned with politics.

“They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election,” Trump said of Iran. “What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already, and won in a landslide … and I’ll be here for two-and-a-half years.”

As Trump began to describe the last six months of on-and-off military strikes against Iran, the delegation of Iranians began to walk out, with only one person remaining seated.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are in New York for the annual meeting but didn’t arrive in the General Assembly hall for Trump’s speech. Instead, lower level staff and delegates were seated when he began to speak, only to leave 10 minutes into his speech.

The president opened his speech at the United Nations with more of a campaign stump-style speech, largely overlooking foreign affairs to focus on his domestic track record on the economy, immigration and crime.

“I can report to you with pride that America is back and our country is stronger today than ever before,” Trump said. “Our technology is second to none, and we are leading in virtually everything.”

Trump talked about the U.S. stock market performance, the 2025 decline in the official U.S. poverty rate, his efforts to stop illegal crossings on the southern border and reduced violent crime rates in American cities.

The venue has been set up for the signing of an agreement between the United States, Denmark and Greenland aimed at strengthening Arctic and North Atlantic security.

Photos from the room in the United Nations headquarters showed a small table with three chairs and place markers. Denmark is placed in the center, between the United States and Greenland.

The signing follows prolonged tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s interest in Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.

The Ukrainian president thanked the group including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, Sen Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and others for the strong bipartisan support in Congress for the Russia sanctions package Trump signed into law.

“When it can be fully implemented, peace and guaranteed security will definitely become closer,” he posted on X.

They met Monday in New York.

It’s standing room only inside the massive General Assembly hall ahead of the Republican president’s speech to the world body. Diplomats, delegates and staff lined the corners and stairwells of the oval shaped room to see the first world leaders take the massive stage.

The Trump administration has spent the last year-and-a-half blasting the institution, saying it has failed to live up to its potential while issuing massive cuts to its programs and initiatives.

This year, Trump is arriving to the U.N. as the U.S. struggles to end a more than six-month war with Iran that’s wreaked havoc on the global economy and once again thrown the Middle East into chaos.

Sitting in the U.S. section are some members of the U.S. mission as well as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Excerpts from Trump’s upcoming speech to the U.N. General Assembly read: “The Cuban regime has also spent decades coordinating with left-wing radicals and Communist networks here in the United States.”

Provided by a White House official, the excerpts accuse Cuban officials of having “cultivated ties to subversive and radical groups” like the Communist Party USA, Antifa and democratic socialists.

Facing low approval ratings, Trump argues that many top Democrats are aligned with communists, hoping it can lift Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

Trump has long suggested that Cuba’s communist government may collapse without U.S. intervention. But, with the war in Iran still ongoing, his administration mostly hasn’t turned its full attention to the situation on the island.

Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah has called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation into Donald Trump Jr.

Curtis’ letter sent Tuesday asks the committee to probe whether Trump Jr. used his proximity to the presidency for financial benefit, which comes after his recent wedding party was partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch.

He called for the same scrutiny of Hunter Biden, former President Joe Biden’s son.

“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis wrote.

The letter comes after ProPublica reported last week that Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, helped pay for festivities when Trump Jr. and socialite Bettina Anderson were married in the Bahamas in May.

President Trump defended Kremlev’s involvement but said the money would be paid back.

The president might have banned CNN from accessing the White House, but he faced questions from the network’s Kaitlan Collins as soon as he entered the United Nations to address the General Assembly.

“I’m surprised that CNN is here,” the president said. “You should not be here.”

Trump has banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Those news outlets are suing the president for violating the First Amendment.

In his address to the General Assembly, he told superpowers to recognize “that their power isn’t so super.”

Recent years have made it clear that “military power alone cannot secure peace,” he said.

The annual high-level gathering at the U.N. General Assembly will be consumed with wars in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine,Sudan, Congo and Myanmar and a persisting question: Can the leaders do anything to end them?

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. military should have at least two bases in Greenland following President Trump’s announcement of a deal with Denmark to bolster the U.S. military presence there.

Rubio told WABC radio that American forces will focus in large part of missile defense because he said missiles launched at the U.S. would come over the Arctic. He said the U.S. has a base in Greenland that can be built up and another that can be restarted.

Rubio said the deal allows the U.S. “to put as many military bases as we need in order to defend everything.” He also said the U.S. will screen companies aiming to invest in Greenland to block those with links to China or other non-NATO adversaries.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is pleading for “a world built on interdependence” as he makes his final address to the General Assembly gathering of world leaders.

The U.N. leader has long implored leaders not to give up on cooperation and shared decision-making in the face of accelerating global challenges and increasing great-powers competition. Tuesday’s message took on additional urgency because he leaves office at the end of this year.

“The fault lines in our world are widening,” he said, citing geopolitical divides, wars, climate change and artificial intelligence. But instead of letting the future continue to veer toward fragmentation, transactionalism and mistrust, he called for “a world built on interdependence — and sustained by a dense web of economic, political, social and technological connections.”

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A White House official says Trump will explain how he’s using American power to confront longstanding challenges and reshape the world to benefit America.

Examples the president will cite include efforts to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, end cartel violence and increase the U.S. military footprint in Greenland, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview Trump’s prepared remarks.

Trump also plans to highlight the administration’s strategy for ending violence, instability and foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere, the official said.

The president will also discuss the administration’s posture toward the U.N.

— Darlene Superville

There’s still no question that the U.N. remains the key gathering place for its 193 member nations and their leaders. Some 130 heads of state and government are expected to speak at the General Assembly starting Tuesday along with dozens of ministers.

Among the headliners: President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron. Both will speak Tuesday after Secretary-General António Guterres’ opening “state of the world” address. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian speak Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whom New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani wanted arrested for his treatment of Palestinians in Gaza until he learned he has no such authority — will address the assembly Thursday. For a second year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won’t be coming to the U.N. because the U.S. has refused to give him a visa. He will nonetheless address the assembly by video the same day.

There’s no doubt it’s been a tough year for the world body. It has been pushed to the sidelines when it comes to its key responsibility of ensuring international peace and security and trying to end major conflicts in the Mideast and Ukraine. The U.S. failure to pay billions of dollars in outstanding arrears has left the organization’s finances in rocky shape.

Former U.N. deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch-Brown, a United Nations Foundation board member, said, “While the world still trusts the U.N., the global public is eager for change.”

The future of artificial intelligence has pushed to the forefront of global concerns, with its speeding advances and the dawning recognition that there are no industry controls, let alone any global guardrails for a technology that has many advantages but also many disadvantages and unknowns.

In last year’s address at the U.N., Trump claimed the U.S. had “demolished” Iran’s nuclear capabilities after he ordered the June 2025 bombardment of three key facilities.

He returns to the General Assembly nearing the seven-month mark of a new war against Iran he insists is necessary to address a nuclear threat posed by Iran.

The war has grown more complicated even though strikes by the United States and Israel have killed much of Iran’s top leadership and destroyed its air force and navy, while a U.S. blockade of Iranian oil has left Tehran in economic shambles.

It starts with Trump’s morning address to the U.N. General Assembly.

The president will meet with the U.K.’s new prime minister, the prime minister of Japan and the president of Ukraine.

He also participates in an event with the leaders of Denmark and Greenland to sign an agreement that’s set to give the United States a bigger military presence on the semiautonomous Danish territory of Greenland.

The president will pay attention to the Middle East by meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council members and will participate in a separate event focused on Latin America and the Western Hemisphere.

Trump is hosting a reception for UNGA leaders and will meet with Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president of Venezuela, before he returns to Washington.

State visits usually occur when two countries are on warm terms, but Trump is hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington this week as their economic and tech competition is only escalating, especially through an artificial intelligence race.

Neither expects any grand bargain, but the leaders are expected to play nice in their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House to try to steady fragile ties. That is despite the world’s two largest economies seeking the upper hand on AI developments and trade, while pushing for leverage in persistent hot spots like Iran and Taiwan.

“The fact that they are meeting, and there’s dialogue occurring and building that relationship, is probably as important as outcomes from the meeting,” said Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican who advises Trump on China and recently traveled there to lay groundwork for the summit.

Cui Tiankai, a former Chinese ambassador to the U.S., said at a recent forum in Beijing that there are “always problems, sometimes very big problems” between the two countries, but “we’ll make our best efforts to maintain overall stability.”

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President Donald Trump is set to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday at a tumultuous moment for the world — and for his presidency.

The global economy has been shaken by his decision to launch a war against Iran. Anxiety about the social impact being wrought by artificial intelligence is surging. And questions linger about the future of the United Nations itself with Trump’s scaling back U.S. financial support for the United Nations.

After his speech to the annual gathering of world leaders, Trump is expected to hold talks with new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and a more informal meeting with Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez, according to the White House.

He’s also set to meet with leaders and senior officials from Gulf Cooperation Council nations — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates — to discuss the way ahead with the war in Iran and growing concern about recent Iran-backed rebels attacks on Saudi Arabia.

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