Trump’s National Conservative UN Speech: Audience Silent After Laughing Six Years Ago

The audi­ence at Trump’s UN speech react­ed very dif­fer­ent­ly from pre­vi­ous years, with world lead­ers sit­ting in silence rather than laugh­ing at the pres­i­den­t’s con­tro­ver­sial state­ments. On 24 Sep­tem­ber 2025, the BBC report­ed that Trump deliv­ered what cor­re­spon­dent James Lan­dale called “Trump­ism unplugged,” spend­ing near­ly an hour attack­ing the Unit­ed Nations, Euro­pean allies, and cli­mate poli­cies while claim­ing per­son­al cred­it for end­ing sev­en wars. The arti­cle begins:

Don­ald Trump’s speech to the Unit­ed Nations was one of the clear­est expo­si­tions of the way he sees the world, his ide­ol­o­gy in its rawest form. To his sup­port­ers, it will be seen as Trump­ism unplugged — to his crit­ics, Trump­ism unhinged. Over almost an hour, he took aim at his oppo­nents and their ideas, pick­ing them off one by one as he toured the world. He began at home, prais­ing the Unit­ed States and him­self. He said the US was liv­ing through a gold­en age and repeat­ed his much-dis­put­ed claim that he had per­son­al­ly end­ed sev­en wars, some­thing he argued mer­it­ed a Nobel Peace Prize. But then the pres­i­dent laid into his hosts. The UN, he said, had not helped his peace-mak­ing. He ques­tioned the organ­i­sa­tion’s pur­pose, say­ing it had tremen­dous poten­tial but was not liv­ing up to that.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179p4wvz29o

Key Points

• Trump attacked the UN’s effec­tive­ness and accused the orga­ni­za­tion of financ­ing asy­lum seek­er “inva­sions” into America.
• The Pres­i­dent called cli­mate change “the great­est con job ever per­pe­trat­ed on the world” to audi­ble gasps.
• Trump warned Europe faces destruc­tion from the “dou­ble-tailed mon­ster” of immi­gra­tion and green ener­gy policies.
• Unlike 2019, when the UN audi­ence laughed at Trump’s claims, this year, world lead­ers lis­tened in silence

Trump’s UN Speech: A Showcase of National Conservative Ideology

Don­ald Trump’s lat­est speech before the Unit­ed Nations serves as a show­case of nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive ide­ol­o­gy, advanc­ing near­ly every core tenet of the move­ment. He por­trayed immi­gra­tion as an exis­ten­tial inva­sion under­min­ing sov­er­eign­ty, framed glob­al insti­tu­tions as cor­rupt and inef­fec­tive, denounced renew­able ener­gy as a “scam,” and ele­vat­ed fos­sil fuels, tar­iffs, and mil­i­tary suprema­cy as foun­da­tions of nation­al strength. The speech con­clud­ed with appeals to Chris­tian­i­ty, ances­tral her­itage, and the defense of cul­tur­al traditions—defining fea­tures of the nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive worldview.

1. Exclu­sion­ary Sov­er­eign­ty and Identity
   The repeat­ed invo­ca­tions of “strongest bor­ders,” “zero ille­gal aliens,” and prison sta­tis­tics about migrants in Europe push a vision where nation­al iden­ti­ty is under siege from out­siders. Migra­tion is cast not as a pol­i­cy prob­lem but as an exis­ten­tial inva­sion that must be repelled to pre­serve cul­ture, tra­di­tion, and sovereignty.
2. Eco­nom­ic Nationalism
   Trump ties pros­per­i­ty to dereg­u­la­tion, tar­iffs, and domes­tic ener­gy expan­sion. For­eign invest­ment is praised only inso­far as it flows into Amer­i­ca under his rules. He frames inter­na­tion­al trade as a zero-sum bat­tle, posi­tion­ing tar­iffs as weapons of sov­er­eign­ty rather than tools of cooperation.
3. Patri­o­tism Over Glob­al Cooperation
   The Unit­ed Nations is mocked—teleprompters, esca­la­tors, “strong­ly word­ed let­ters.” Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism is por­trayed as weak, cor­rupt, and par­a­sitic. Peace, in his telling, comes only through U.S. uni­lat­er­al action and per­son­al deals with strong leaders.
4. Pri­or­i­tiz­ing Econ­o­my Over Environment
   The green tran­si­tion is derid­ed as a “scam” and “con job.” Renew­ables are paint­ed as expen­sive, use­less, and for­eign-made (espe­cial­ly Chi­nese). Fos­sil fuels, coal, and nuclear are exalt­ed as the lifeblood of nation­al greatness.
5. Restric­tive Social Welfare
   Though not deeply elab­o­rat­ed, the theme appears in his insis­tence that migrants “deplete our social safe­ty net,” and that ben­e­fits should be pre­served only for native cit­i­zens. Com­pas­sion is reserved for oth­ers only if “prob­lems are solved in their own countries.”
6. Nation­al­ist Edu­ca­tion and Cul­tur­al Preservation
   The clos­ing sec­tion cel­e­brates ances­tors, found­ing myths, and hero­ic lega­cies as guid­ing duties. It’s a clas­sic nation­al­ist invo­ca­tion of her­itage and cul­ture as sacred assets to defend against dilution.
7. Harsh Immi­gra­tion Policies
   Immi­gra­tion is con­sis­tent­ly equat­ed with crime, ter­ror­ism, traf­fick­ing, and cul­tur­al anni­hi­la­tion. Poli­cies are framed as human­i­tar­i­an not in pro­tect­ing migrants, but in dis­cour­ag­ing them from com­ing at all.
8. Enforc­ing Tra­di­tion­al Fam­i­ly Struc­tures & Religion
   He nods to “pro­tect­ing reli­gious lib­er­ty” with spe­cial empha­sis on Chris­tian­i­ty as “the most per­se­cut­ed reli­gion on the plan­et.” This taps into a com­mon Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive motif of defend­ing the Chris­t­ian her­itage of the West.
9. Con­trol­ling Media and Shap­ing Narratives
   While less cen­tral here, attacks on “fake news” and ref­er­ences to cen­sor­ship in Brazil reflect the broad­er claim that glob­al­ist elites con­trol nar­ra­tives to weak­en sov­er­eign nations and silence patri­ot­ic voices.
10. Mil­i­ta­rized Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Focus
    Trump repeat­ed­ly boasts of U.S. mil­i­tary suprema­cy, drone strikes, bomb­ings, and des­ig­nat­ing gangs/cartels as ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions. NATO is reshaped not as a coop­er­a­tive body but as a bur­den forced to meet his nation­al­ist def­i­n­i­tion of strength.

The rhetor­i­cal through­line is that Amer­i­ca (and by exten­sion, the West) is great only when it asserts sov­er­eign­ty, defends bor­ders, rejects glob­al­ist schemes, and dou­bles down on fos­sil-fueled indus­tri­al strength. Glob­al insti­tu­tions, green ener­gy, open bor­ders, and human­i­tar­i­an mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism are depict­ed as threats that sap vital­i­ty. This is pre­cise­ly the Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive nar­ra­tive: a world of proud, dis­tinct nations, each pro­tect­ing its her­itage, econ­o­my, and tra­di­tions, sus­pi­cious of supra­na­tion­al author­i­ty, and jus­ti­fied in using hard power—military or economic—to enforce that vision.

Exter­nal References:

1. Nation­al Con­ser­vatism: The Transat­lantic Rise of a New Right
2. The Trump Doc­trine of Nationalism
3. Under­stand­ing Nation­al Conservatism

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.