UNGA in five lines

Jamming 130 world leaders into UN HQ and telling them the theme is 'trust' feels like locking 130 alcoholics in a brewery and telling them the theme is sobriety.

But that's what's now underway at the UN's 81st 'High-Level Week', so here are the five lines you should know, starting with...

1. "The fault lines in our world are widening. Cracks have become canyons." — António Guterres, UN secretary-general

Delivering his final leader-week opener as UN chief, Guterres unleashed his signature existential realism, framing our world as now facing four "tests of power" (war, inequality, climate, AI) atop three shifts in power (between states, from states to firms, and from humans to machines).

A bitter swansong for Guterres, but also a grim job ad for the seven folks now racing to succeed him: the Security Council's latest secret straw-poll suggests it could be a photo finish between Costa Rica's Grynspan and Guyana's Rodrigues-Birkett.

Guterres also sounded like an Incredibles character when he argued, "Superpowers need a recognition that their power isn't so super." But we mention that because...

2. "Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild… or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic?" — Donald Trump, US president

That's the shock the hall packed out for, with Trump insisting it's a binary he'll settle after the midterms: it's an attempt to a) maintain his maximalist rhetoric amid military fatigue; b) blunt his war's costs as a campaign issue; but also c) curb Iran's presumed Carter/Bibi play (settling after the election to maximum political damage).

Talks are underway via Iran's UN delegation, but the regime's figurehead Pezeshkian seems busy running the opposite slogan ("Peace cannot be forged while missiles hang over our heads.") Survival is all the regime needs to claim a win, plus it's hard to see the mullahs gifting Trump a pre-election deal.

The US president then used the rest of his airtime to dunk on the International Criminal Court, announce two new bases on Greenland, and rebrand AI as "super intelligence" (because artificial sounds fake?) — he also pushed back on any global AI regulation designed to stifle the boom and cede dominance to China.

Then it was time to hear from Latin America's largest democracy...

3. "Brazil does not belong in anyone’s backyard." — Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president

With his own high-stakes, neck-and-neck election now less than two weeks away, Lula used his country's customary #1 speaker spot to appeal to folks back home, and even dunk on his conservative young rival Flávio Bolsonaro as attaching himself to "foreign interests contrary to the country" (a reference to junior's DC support).

It wasn't all domestic, however: Lula also co-launched the sexily-named Partners for Multilateralism (P4M 🇨🇦🇧🇷🇰🇪🇪🇺🇦🇺🇧🇧🇮🇳) — another middle-power coalition hoping to bypass the UN's superpower vetoes and force some much-needed reform from the middle out. It's hard to see how another informal group can force structural breakthroughs, but at least take it as a signal of the middle's growing discontent.

Speaking of which...

4. "This Israeli government's expansionist appetite is now a regional threat." — Jordan's King Abdullah II

It makes sense for Abdullah to raise the Israeli-Palestinian conflict given a) he borders the suffering, b) half his people have deep Palestinian roots (a delicate demographic balance for his monarchy), and c) his dad also occupied the West Bank before losing it joining the region’s war on Israel in 1967.

But the king's searing speech was more interesting for the way it framed Israel's recent incursions in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran as a regional threat, presumably in hopes of more international pushback.

Israel's Netanyahu gets his right of reply tomorrow (Thurs), and will no doubt pull a Lula appealing to his own pre-election voters, but safe to say Gaza — not Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, or Ukraine — is already shaping up as UNGA's top topic again.

Meanwhile, we heard about a different existential challenge in...

5. "Miquelon is becoming the first French town whose inhabitants must be relocated because of rising sea levels." — Emmanuel Macron, French president

With most small island states hitting the podium later this week, it was interesting to hear Macron’s line on the French overseas territory of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon off the coast of Canada. With many residents there living on a sandy strip just 2m (6.5ft) above sea level, Paris has launched a multi-decade initiative to move everyone higher, supported by the Barnier Fund (to buy homes threatened by climate change).

We mention it because small-island leaders have been saying "we are drowning" for a decade and getting a standing ovation plus a side event, but this passing Macron line will feel different for many: it’s now EU and NATO-linked turf at risk, and maybe that starts to shift the world from distant solidarity to oh crap?

Sound even smarter:

• South Korea’s President Lee used his podium speech to call for a resumption in US-North Korea talks, plus used a separate interview to call for an easing of sanctions on the North, in hopes of nuclear de-escalation.

• The US is reportedly withholding UNGA visas for Sudanese junta leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan unless he agrees to a 90-day US-backed ceasefire.

• President Trump just met Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez for the first time. No real word on substance, but back home, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has now reportedly attempted to re-enter Venezuela three times in the past 24 hours, seizing on Rodriguez’s UNGA absence. She’s previously faced obstacles from both the US and Rodriguez.