Seven years ago this week, Donald Trump addressed the United Nations and began his remarks with an absurdity. “In less than two years,” the American president said, “my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” The boast, of course, was plainly false.
But just as important at the time was that everyone in attendance at the U.N. General Assembly recognized the rhetoric as silly — and some of the diplomats in the room started audibly laughing. The laughter caught the Republican off-guard and left Trump in a position he’d long hoped to avoid: the target of international ridicule.
Seven years later, the circumstances have changed in dramatic ways. In 2018, foreign officials laughed at Trump because they thought he was kidding. In 2025, they did not laugh, because they know he isn’t. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump delivered a critical address to the United Nations General Assembly at a moment of heightened strain with U.S. allies over Palestinian statehood, trade and other flash points as his administration retreats from the global body. In remarks that called for United Nations reforms, Trump charged the institution with failing to act to solve global conflicts and immigration woes and derided its ‘empty words’ that ‘don’t solve war.’
In some ways, the Republican’s address was a handy encapsulation of where Trump stands in the fifth year of his White House tenure.
Over the course of his remarks, he told strange lies about foreign investments in the U.S. He generated murmurs in the hall by declaring, “Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back to where you came from — or perhaps even further than that. You know what that means.”
He pretended that he’s ended seven wars, while pointing to approval ratings that exist only in his mind. He renewed his pathetic lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize, falsely claiming that “everyone” wants him to get one. He took pointless shots at ostensible U.S. allies in NATO. He told unnamed officials that their countries are “going to hell.” He bragged about campaign swag sales. He attacked clean, renewable energy, while insisting that climate science is an elaborate “con job” and a “hoax” concocted by nefarious people with “evil intentions.”
And for good measure, he claimed that unnamed “environmentalists” want to ban cows.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump told one of his favorite lies, bragging that international respect for the U.S. has reached all-time highs now that he’s back in power.
This is, of course, the opposite of the truth — global surveys have shown support for the U.S. has collapsed in recent months — and it was an especially painful lie, given that Trump was alienating the world while delivering the ludicrous comment.
Each individual absurdity was notable on its own, but taken together, the emerging picture was of a dishonest American president, unable to articulate a coherent vision to foreign leaders, with a strained relationship with reality.
Ishaan Tharoor, a global affairs columnist for The Washington Post, wrote online after the speech, “I’ve reported on every Trump UNGA speech. This is easily the craziest one.”
Tharoor soon after highlighted a message he’d received from a senior foreign diplomat.
In the event that the diplomat sees this, the answer is, yes, some Americans are keenly aware of the humiliation.
