UNITED NATIONS — Frustrated by a war with Iran that has lasted long past his initial promises, President Donald Trump told world leaders on Tuesday that he would “annihilate” the entire country if its leaders do not make a deal.
It was a stark warning in the green-marbled hall of the United Nations, where discussions more often tend toward advancing peace than the elimination of an entire nation. The president also expressed concern for the Iranian anti-government protesters who were killed by Tehran’s security forces earlier this year.
He repeated the claim that a peace deal would be likely after the midterm elections in November, and said later that his top envoys sat for talks with Iranian officials on Tuesday for three hours, their first known face-to-face meetings in months.
“They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is that I’m not running,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s leaders.
“I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn’t even enter my mind,” Trump said. “The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump’s vow to stay on his current path with Iran came despite an increasing number of Republican senators who have moved away from him on the war and have called for it to come to a swift end and as indications mount that Democrats may ride into Congress on a major wave of voter discontent.
“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump told leaders at the U.N. General Assembly. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
Taken seriously, Trump’s threat amounted to a contemplation of mass slaughter with little parallel in human history, with deadly consequences for Iran’s 93 million people.
He has, however, shown little inclination for large-scale assaults against Iran since the opening weeks of the war, despite repeated threats.
With global energy prices skyrocketing, peace efforts faltering in Ukraine and Iran, and Republicans facing grim election news, Trump’s U.N. appearance this year was a measure of the scale of global conflicts.
The president’s vigorous campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize — hot on the agenda a year ago ahead of the annual October announcement date — was far more muted on Tuesday than it was in 2025. Instead, he focused on promoting the foreign policy wins he can claim, while trying to manage the many challenges arrayed in front of him.
Still, he found space in his 36-minute speech to run through a list of the many world leaders whom he said had written him letters praising him for his peace initiatives.
Later in the day, Trump told reporters about the meeting his envoys had with the Iranians.
“It was a very good meeting, I must tell you,” said Trump, noting that he “can’t imagine” why Iran wouldn’t want to make a deal given the potential consequences of renewed U.S. military action.
“It’s greatness — potential greatness — or obliteration,” Trump said.
In-person meetings between the longtime enemies rarely happen, particularly on U.S. soil, but the gathering of world leaders provided an opportunity for the two sides to reopen diplomatic discussions. While Trump has signaled publicly that he’s comfortable with the war continuing through the midterms in November, U.S. officials have said privately that ending the unpopular conflict is a top priority of the White House.
The U.S.-Israel war against Iran that launched in February has disrupted global energy prices, divided the president’s MAGA movement and helped sink his approval ratings to historic lows. The subsequent U.S. blockade of Iran, meanwhile, has shattered Iran’s economy and prompted a currency crisis in the country.
Trump sped from his U.N. speech directly to a ceremony where he signed a new agreement with Denmark and Greenland that he boasts will support American security in the Arctic territory for generations. It was the outcome of months of frantic diplomacy after the president all but threatened to seize Greenland by force in January — a possibility that frightened NATO allies whose security rests on the might of the United States.
“You can go back many, many decades, probably centuries, but you go back, way back, in the line of presidents,” Trump claimed of a U.S. desire to take over Greenland, speaking alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. “Some really wanted to make a deal and never got done. But we’re getting it done.”
Frederiksen, who has clashed for years with Trump over his demands for Greenland, put on a game face as she signed the paperwork, noting that under the agreement, Denmark and Greenland’s sovereignty would remain in place.
“If we let ourselves be divided as allies, then we do our foes a favor. We will do everything we can to prevent that from happening,” she said.
Trump’s day of diplomacy was a reminder of the challenges he still faces — along with some areas in which he has reshaped global affairs to his benefit. He also met the new British prime minister, Andy Burnham, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, all of whom offered cordial words with the U.S. leader.
Zelensky’s encounter with Trump was likely the highest-stakes encounter of the day. The U.S. leader has had a hot-and-cold relationship with him, and his country is facing an escalating onslaught from Russia.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the closed-door meeting, Trump said that he thinks the stage is set for a peace deal between the two countries after senior U.S. officials visited Moscow and Kyiv in recent weeks. He said he and Zelensky planned to discuss the possibility of Ukraine’s producing advanced air defense missiles, an idea Trump said he supported in July but later backed away from.
Trump has asked Ukraine and Russia to back away from attacking each other’s energy facilities, complaining that they are contributing to the rising world price of diesel fuel.
Zelensky said Tuesday that he would embrace an agreement to halt the attacks, though he said he was skeptical Russia was interested.
“I suggest not to play this game,” he told reporters after his meeting with Trump. Putin “attacked us. We respond.”
The president also stopped by a meeting of Gulf leaders whose countries have faced assault from Tehran following Trump’s February decision to attack Iran. And in the evening he plans to have a quick pull-aside meeting with Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who came to power in January after Trump ordered a raid that captured her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro remains in custody in a Brooklyn federal prison, not far from the U.N. gathering.
Trump reveled in the fresh U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil fields. “It’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made,” he told U.N. leaders. “To the victor belong the spoils.”
The New York trip came as Trump has fought the media that covers him, kicking CNN, MS NOW and Politico out of the White House. Television networks have declined to assign a pool camera to follow him this week as he traveled to New York to take the spot of the originally assigned CNN, leading them to use official United Nations video feeds on Tuesday to carry the speech. CNN, meanwhile, didn’t carry the speech live at all and instead covered other topics as it was underway.
Trump’s most consequential meetings this week may follow the U.N. gathering, when he heads back to Washington to host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit.
Trump has sought to court Beijing as he tries to boost the U.S. economy with investments and pull back manufacturing from China. Expectations for the summit with China are muted, but Trump has said that good personal relations with his Chinese counterpart are key to managing the complex and contentious geopolitics of China’s rise.
John Hudson contributed to this report.
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