SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Scott Detrow in Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And I'm Mary Louise Kelly in New York, where the United Nations is still standing. The U.N. General Assembly is in full swing - UNGA week, as the diplomats who are racing past you in the hallways call it. In years past, President Trump has used his address here to threaten the U.N. Today, he spoke of himself as a peacemaker, someone ending wars - except for Iran, which he threatened once again to annihilate. His word. Well, Michael Froman was watching and listening. Michael Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he is here with me now in our New York bureau. Hi there.
MICHAEL FROMAN: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: What was your top takeaway from today?
FROMAN: Well, first of all, I think the president did try and position himself as a peacemaker, somebody to resolve all of the outstanding foreign policy issues that have bedeviled the United States for years, whether it was...
KELLY: Except for the countries he wants to annihilate or...
FROMAN: Well, including Iran...
KELLY: Cuba and Iran would have thoughts on that, yeah.
FROMAN: ...The Middle East, Venezuela, perhaps Cuba down the road. But as you said, on Iran, there was very much a path to be taken, whether it's reach agreement or annihilation. On the Middle East, the Gaza plan that he put forward, I think we're 1.5 points into a 20-point plan. It's difficult to see how we progress from here. And on Russia-Ukraine, he called for an end to it. He said it has to end. But there wasn't any specifics about how we might get there, although his administration has certainly been engaged in that process.
Notably absent, almost any mention of China, the competitor of the United States, conceivably the one who, with the United States, is defining the nature of the world order going forward. And there was very little mention of that at all. And with regard to AI, really all systems go - that we are in a competition, we're going to win, and there's going to be very little effort to put guardrails or regulation around it.
KELLY: Except that President Trump would like to rename it because the artificial - that is the A in AI - President Trump says, makes it sound fake, and he says it's not.
FROMAN: It's a branding issue.
KELLY: Stay with Iran for a second. The president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, is expected to speak, scheduled to speak, at the U.N. tomorrow. Same stage. Any guesses as to what we will hear?
FROMAN: Well, my sense is he'll go through the litany of criticisms and complaints about the United States and Israel over the last several years. But he's not in a great - particularly strong position because the U.N., including the Security Council, has condemned Iran for closing the Strait of Hormuz, and there's an international effort to keep it open. So most of the delegates in the hallway will be on the side of those who would like to see normalcy reimposed on the Strait of Hormuz and ships being able to pass freely, as had been the case really for decades before.
KELLY: It doesn't sound like you're holding your breath for a major diplomatic breakthrough to emerge from this gathering of the United Nations General...
FROMAN: No. Look, the most important meetings are those probably not in the hallway, but along the sides. The fact that the Trump administration has met with the Iranians, will continue to meet, conceivably, with them while they are in town, and hopefully they can make progress there on the outstanding issues.
KELLY: That's interesting that a lot of the meat of the diplomacy is happening in these private meetings, bilateral meetings, on the sidelines, as opposed to within the Security Council or the General Assembly. Does that speak to the relevance of the United Nations, big picture, in 2026?
FROMAN: Well, the United Nations is really - it's a tale of two institutions. There's the operating institutions like the World Food Programme or UNICEF that do really important on-the-ground work in the most difficult circumstances of dealing with humanitarian needs, health, development and the like. And those are struggling now under limited resources but really play a vital role. And then there's the political side of the U.N., the General Assembly, the Security Council, where delegates get together to pass resolutions.
In effect, if you look back over U.N. history, division has been more the norm than the exception. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed on very little, and very little got through the Security Council. Now, between the competition with China and the conflict with Russia, again, the Security Council is not very effective. And the real question for the future is, as we are about to pick a new secretary-general, new leadership of the U.N., will there be somebody there who can build consensus among the member states, create credibility, be a larger-than-life figure to address some of these big issues like war and peace that the U.N. was designed and intended to deal with? Or will it be more of a bureaucratic approach and really be susceptible to the pressures of politics from the United States or elsewhere?
KELLY: Huge and very open question, as outgoing Secretary-General Antonio Guterres prepares to wrap up at the end of this year. You mentioned that we didn't hear much about China in this speech today, perhaps because the big meeting with China is coming on Thursday. And it will not be at the U.N. It will be back in Washington. I was going to ask what you're watching for next. Will you be shifting your gaze, along with many of the rest of us, to Washington as this week progresses?
FROMAN: Well, I imagine. I don't think there's high expectations of major deliverables coming out of this meeting. It's a state visit, but it's a relatively short state visit. I think the hope is, on the part of the administration and I think also on the part of the Chinese, is just to keep this low level of detente going - stability in the relationship over the course of the year. This is the second of four potential summits there will be this year between President Xi and President Trump. There may be some progress on a trade issue here or a trade issue there, but the fundamental issues in the relationship are really being swept under the rug for now and - in the hopes of maintaining stability.
KELLY: Talking better than not talking. Michael Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, happy UNGA week to you.
FROMAN: Thank you very much.
KELLY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
