Supporting Palestinian State Means Rewarding Hamas, Trump Tells UN

United States President Donald Trump has told world leaders at the ongoing 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 80) on Tuesday that recognising a Palestinian state amounts to “rewarding Hamas,” as he reaffirmed Washington’s opposition to the growing wave of international recognition.

“The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them,” Trump said, directly criticising moves by Britain, France, and other nations to endorse Palestinian statehood following the ongoing Gaza conflict.

LEADERSHIP reports that Israel has long argued that such recognition legitimises Hamas, which carried out the October 7, 2023, attack that left around 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 taken hostage. Since then, Israel’s offensives in Gaza have killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Trump, returning to the UN for the first time since 2020, broadened his remarks to deliver a sarcasm-laden attack on the institution itself.

“The UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it—it has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to it,” he said, mocking the state of the UN’s New York headquarters and even complaining about a broken escalator.

The president also used his address to criticise NATO and London’s mayor while suggesting his administration could sanction Russia if European nations “change course.” His comments came shortly after NATO warned Moscow that it “must stop” its violations of allied airspace.

Trump’s speech, mixing sharp criticism with trademark sarcasm, underscored his long-running scepticism of “globalist institutions” and his belief that the UN is failing to deliver on its founding promise of global peace and security.