The 2026 United Nations So Far: Hypocrisy, Memes, Contradictions

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Geopolitics I’m a big fan of United Nations Week, not because I expect anything meaningful to happen, but because nothing meaningful ever seems to happen.

It’s another year of jaw-dropping Trump remarks, political gaffes, performative diplomacy and, of course, that yearly thought: “So these are the guys running the world during arguably the most tumultuous period since the Second World War?”

First, we of course have to begin with President Donald Trump.

Standing on the world’s biggest diplomatic stage, Trump announced that the world should apparently stop calling artificial intelligence “artificial intelligence” and instead adopt the far superior name of… Super Intelligence. There is, however, one small problem with that. “Superintelligence” already exists as a term. It generally refers to a hypothetical form of intelligence that vastly exceeds human cognitive ability across essentially every field imaginable.

But Trump loves a good rebrand. From geographic names to government departments, and now apparently the entire AI arms race, nothing is safe. Even better, the idea appears to have emerged partly from a public vote on his own social media platform, Truth Social.

In Trump’s words: “From this point forward, all of United States' documents, and hopefully the world's, will be changed to use the more accurate term 'super' as opposed to 'artificial'. So it's 'super intelligence'.”

Over the previous week, Trump had asked his followers to vote on several potential replacements for “AI”, including Superior Intelligence, Extreme Intelligence and Supreme Intelligence. After a series of Truth Social polls, Super Intelligence emerged victorious. Democracy is alive and well.

Trump’s growing fascination with AI also appears to have intensified following increasingly public warnings from major figures within the technology industry about the risks associated with rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, Google executives, Sam Altman and others have all, to varying degrees, warned about the dangers posed by increasingly powerful AI systems.

Trump’s response was essentially to shoo the idea of slowing down away. I can’t help but see a little history repeating itself here. After scientists involved in the development of the atomic bomb began warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons, Truman’s relationship with figures such as Robert Oppenheimer became increasingly hostile.

Different technology, different century, same general theme: “Thanks for inventing the terrifying new thing. We’ll take it from here.”

Trump also proceeded to call Cuba a “failed state”, hinting that freedom may soon reach the suburbs of Havana, before turning his attention towards Iran and declaring that he has a “big decision to make”: “Will a deal be made with Iran? ... Or, do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly?”

Each day I become further convinced that we are living inside a South Park simulation. But who am I kidding? At this point reality has probably surpassed whatever the South Park writers could realistically pitch.

Another surprising star of this year’s UNGA has been Ahmed al-Sharaa. Former jihadist commander, former leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate, and now the increasingly meme-able leader of the new Syria.

A viral clip surfaced showing al-Sharaa apparently doomscrolling during a speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If that isn’t symbolism for the current state of the international order, I’m not sure what is.

Sometimes I genuinely wonder how the entire Jolani-to-al-Sharaa transformation happened so quickly — and whether even he fully understands how he ended up here.

Journalist Thomas van Linge seems to sum the entire situation up quite well (See Here)

Another golden moment came when al-Sharaa was questioned about his views and actions in the past. Rather than dwelling on history, he went into full existentialist mode: “I don’t believe that it’s an appropriate time to discuss things that happened 25 years ago. I was at a different age, and the conditions in the region were different.”

Nietzsche would be proud. The old Jolani is dead. There is only al-Sharaa now.

Or, depending on how cynical you are, it was simply a masterclass in political deflection. He also told a story about suggesting to Trump that he should give New Jersey to the Israelis during his first White House visit.

Yes. You read that correctly.

Away from the headline-grabbing appearances of Trump and al-Sharaa, the opening of the UN General Assembly has still produced several notable developments. UN Secretary-General António Guterres used his final General Assembly address to warn that global divisions have widened dramatically, calling for Security Council reform, stronger international governance of artificial intelligence, renewed climate action and de-escalation across ongoing conflicts.

Gaza and Palestinian statehood remained central themes for many delegations. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for greater international pressure on Israel, wider recognition of Palestine and reform of a Security Council system that he argues gives excessive influence to its five permanent members.

Which raises another slightly awkward question: Has Erdoğan forgotten that Turkey remains deeply connected to the energy infrastructure helping move Azerbaijani oil towards Israel? (accounting for roughly 47% of total imports).

But hey, this is the beauty of UN week — everyone gets to temporarily pretend international politics operates without contradictions.

Canada, meanwhile, announced C$100 million in additional support for Palestinians, with most of the funding directed towards humanitarian assistance and the remainder going towards security and Palestinian policing initiatives. Macron also suggested that France may eventually need to take a greater role in keeping the Straits open as the conflict in the Arabian Gulf shows little sign of ending.

But not before taking a swipe at how the entire situation began, arguing that the war should never have started in the first place and criticising the idea that bombing another country into regime change was ever likely to produce the desired result.

Which, considering the last several decades of Middle Eastern history, is perhaps not the most revolutionary observation ever made at the United Nations. Then again, that is part of the charm of UNGA.

World leaders gather in New York, spend several days warning that the international system is collapsing, explain why everyone else is responsible for it collapsing, pose for photographs together...

…and then fly home.