Special to WorldTribune.com

By John J. Metzler, September 22, 2025

Presidents, prime ministers, kings and potentates are converging on New York for the United Nations General Assembly session.

The upcoming General Debate, starting Sept. 23, will bring together a cast of thousands of delegates for ten days of speeches, meetings, and debates.

UN Sec. Gen. Antonio Guterres describes the upcoming the session as the “World Cup of diplomacy.” Yet he adds, “But this cannot be about scoring points, it must be about solving problems. There is too much at stake.”

This being the global organization’s 80th anniversary, the commemorations will sadly be leavened with gloom more than gala celebrations. The global situation is beset with dangerous wars such as Ukraine and Gaza, dire humanitarian crises such as Sudan, Haiti and Congo, as well as simmering conflicts in a dozen far flung regions such as Yemen, Myanmar, and Lebanon.

Then there’s trying to rebuild and foster a daunting democratic transition in places like Syria, still swamped by millions of displaced persons and refugees.

As more than 150 heads of state and government converge at the meeting, the General Assembly’s President Annalena Baerbock, a former German Foreign Minister, describes the mood with a slogan “Better Together” alluding to the need to pursue “Dialogue and Diplomacy.”

In her opening address to the Assembly, Baerbock stated bluntly; “This is not a normal session.  We stand at a crossroads, a make-OR-break moment.  Eight decades of progress and setbacks, of achievement and failure, of renewal and resolve, have brought us here.”

Starting on Tuesday Sept. 23, Brazil traditionally leads off the debate followed by the United States who will see a major address by President Donald J. Trump, the King of Jordan, and South Korea’s new President Lee Jae-Myung.

Later in the day France, Poland and Morocco will speak among others. Daily sessions start promptly at 9 a.m. and drone into the evening until at least 9 p.m.

The ongoing war in Ukraine still shadows the session and remains a focus for the United States, Canada and the European states.  But as many diplomats privately assert, the long-expected cease-fire is not happening anytime soon.

UN Sec. Gen. Guterres describes a world adrift in “turbulent, uncharted waters.”

The perpetual Palestine shadow hangs over the session in so many ways.

Though the State of Palestine holds only Observer Status not full membership at the world body, and though over 140 countries have recognized Palestine — Britain, Canada, France, and Australia are among the latest — the U.S. is holding firm and has blocked the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his team from visiting New York.

Nonetheless Abbas will address the session via video link to support the so-called Two State Solution.

Ukraine’s President Vlodomyr Zelensky returns as does Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov from Russia to re-state the positions of the Kyiv and Moscow governments respectively.

The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran joins Syria’s new chief of State as well as Argentina’s colorful President Javier Milei, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu at the session.

Significantly for the United States, on the eve of the Assembly session, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm former national security advisor Mike Waltz as U.S. UN Ambassador. For eight months the Waltz nomination was bottled up in the Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C. leaving the Administration without a sitting Ambassador during tumultuous times.

Finally, the Senate voted 47 to 43 to confirm Amb. Waltz for  U.S. permanent representative to the U.N. He has since presented his credentials to the Secretary General.

And the Budget cuts?

The U.S. has justifiably played hardball with the UN over cutting the funding of the garishly biased UN Relief and Worlds Agency (UNRWA) in Palestine, given widespread concerns over the group’s anti-Israel agenda.

The UN’s regular budget, based on assessment of member states, has seen cuts in funding as well as financial withholding. A cash crunch clouds the organization.

The UN has finally agreed to massive budget cuts. The $3.8 billion budget for 2025 has been cut by $576 million to $3.2 billion! Impressive. By the way, the entire UN regular budget is equal to about 10% percent of this year’s New York City Education budget!!

For New Yorkers the annual UN Assembly Session is best known for traffic chaos, closed streets and speeding motorcades with black Secret Service vehicles guarding tinted-glass limousines.

Yet within the UN ’s cavernous headquarters on the East River, debates, meetings on the margins of the Assembly, and ambassadorial glad handing in discreet sessions will dominate what is dubbed High Level Week.

There’s a turbulent ride ahead.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]

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