As Trump Brags, Bullies, Threatens Genocide, Silence Is Deafening
On September 22, 2026, US president Donald Trump welcomed the world to the opening of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York. That “welcome” was peppered with boasts of US prowess and threats of Armageddon for any who dare cross Washington.
From the marbled podium, Trump reiterated his intent to bring the Cuban people to heel, claiming Cuba is a failed state — “failure,” of course, largely brought about by the US blockade starving the country of fuel, food, and medicine.
He bragged about the US conquest of Venezuela, making it clear that anyone who threatens US hegemony in the Americas would face the same fate.
And, once again, the narcissist boasted of being a “peacemaker,” claiming he has ended a string of wars. These allegedly included the Israeli war in Gaza, where — despite his claims — the genocide against the Palestinians is ongoing; and the 2025 US-Israeli bombing of Iran, even though he launched the US-Israeli war on Iran less than nine months later — a war with no end in sight.
EDITORIAL
This might sound like Trump’s usual bluster and braggadocio. But the US Warmaker-in-Chief’s unvarnished threats against Iran made it an especially obscene performance.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump mused, like the abusive father holding his belt over an errant child. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? … 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?”
Annihilate? Drive them into hell? No hope of future generations?
What grotesque utterances of intent to commit genocide, to obliterate one of the world’s oldest civilizations and millions of men, women, and children!
And his audience was not errant children. Trump’s audience was composed of delegates from nations from across the globe that represent most of humanity, brought together in the halls of an organization chartered to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
Don’t overlook Trump’s sentence structure either. It is “I,” the autocrat, who decides whether to commit such atrocities, not the cabinet or any other part of the US government — which are expected to just bow and fall in line.
The US president’s king-like belligerence and cruel disregard for human life was stunning. But even more striking was the deafening silence from his audience. Only the delegates from Cuba and Iran reacted in the appropriate way, walking out as Trump insulted and threatened their nations.
Although a number of delegates from other states voiced concern over specific US policies during their allocated time on the dais, their failure to respond in the moment reflects the deep fear that Washington’s military and economic blows have spread around the world. The US government’s propensity for swift and harsh retaliation has become all too clear.
By contrast, at least 77 delegations left the room — or never showed up — as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage the following day. His speech echoed Trump’s, not just in its themes, but in its belligerence and callous disregard of the many UN resolutions demanding an end to Israel’s drive to force all Palestinians out of their ancestral lands and recognizing the Palestinians’ quest for national self-determination.
But while Netanyahu is in charge of Washington’s main client state in the Middle East, he is not himself the emperor. Most of those who walked out of the UN chambers during Netanyahu’s speech failed to highlight and protest — even more vigorously — US imperialism’s central role in the Israeli genocide, atrocities committed falsely in the name of all Jews worldwide.
Both Trump and Netanyahu were spared a protest by the Palestinians, whose delegation to the United Nations was denied visas by the US state department.
Revolutionary Cuba sounds the alarm
During his September 26 speech to the General Assembly, Cuba’s foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla responded to the show of imperialist arrogance four days earlier by reminding the delegates of an historic speech Fidel Castro — the central leader of the Cuban Revolution — gave at the UN general assembly 66 years earlier.
“Do away with the philosophy of plunder, and you will have done away forever with the philosophy of war,” Castro eloquently explained. “Do away with the colonies, wipe out the exploitation of countries by monopolies, and then humanity will have achieved a true period of progress.”
“It is alarming,” Rodríguez said, “to see the advance of expansionism, usurpation, plunder, conquest as well as military and economic aggressions.” He cited the Zionist genocide against the Palestinian people, the Pentagon’s pirate attacks on vessels and extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, the US attack on Venezuela, and the US-Israeli war on Iran as examples of a sweeping assault on humanity and on international law.
Rodriguez’s remarks put the spotlight on a dangerous new reality.
In its February 2025 article Trump’s 2nd Term: One-Man Rule & the Danger of Incipient Fascism, World-Outlook sounded the alarm over this new situation.
“U.S. imperialism, once the undisputed number one world power economically and militarily, has been in decline for some time,” World-Outlook pointed out. “Washington faces increased competition for domination of global markets, trade, and technological innovation, especially from China, which is rapidly rising as the world’s second capitalist power and threatens the status and profits of U.S.-based businesses.
“Many among the billionaire families that rule the United States are no longer confident the policies of traditional liberal or conservative administrations over the last half century can reverse this decline. A considerable number of them, by backing Trump, are opting for autocracy at home, combined with visions of territorial expansion abroad, to salvage their declining international position.
“That’s why Trump’s imperial proposals for taking back the Panama Canal, threatening the use of military force to pry Greenland away from control by Denmark — a NATO ally, taking over Gaza after driving out the 2 million Palestinians living there, and even turning Canada into the 51st U.S. state have not been dismissed by many among the wealthy.”
Trump’s trade wars, with successive waves of tariffs on friends and foes alike, defying or trying to circumvent repeated court decisions, are another manifestation of this new reality.
“Such expansionist saber-rattling, attempts at resource grabbing reminiscent of the colonial era, and aggressive protectionism could lead to new wars and possibly another world conflagration,” World-Outlook warned. “This is more likely in an increasingly unstable world in which ultra-rightist forces have already ascended to power, or are knocking on its doors, in a rising number of ‘first-world,’ or more accurately imperialist, countries.”
US and world events from Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 until today show that most ruling classes across the globe are sleepwalking toward fascism and World War III.
In the United States, as Trump and company continue to defy Congress and the courts, attack democratic rights, and lay the groundwork for undermining or even overturning upcoming elections, the liberal bourgeoisie — personified by the Democratic Party establishment — seems cowed or unwilling to stand up for the “rule of law.”
In addition, “top labor union officials are largely taking their cue from the Democratic Party leadership, as they have done for decades. The result of this class collaboration has been a half century of nearly uninterrupted decline of the labor movement,” as World-Outlook explained.
“Democratic elected officials have filed lawsuits against some of Trump’s moves, hoping the courts will slow Trump down and reverse some of his actions. Many clearly fear Trump but place all their eggs in the courts’ basket while declining to mobilize mass opposition to him in the streets. This is a dangerous strategy.”
This was on display as liberal politicians and pundits, and the organized labor movement, largely stayed silent, staging no meaningful protests over Trump’s grotesque performance at the UN on September 22.
It is necessary, however, as socialist leader James P. Cannon said in describing the danger of incipient fascism in the United States during the post-World War II McCarthyite witch hunt, to raise the alarm among working people “to the reality of the danger and, from that, to the necessity of organizing the struggle on the right basis while there is yet time. The workers still have time to organize the countermovement, but they don’t have forever; and the sooner they recognize the central reality of the whole problem — that the issue will be decided in struggle — the better chance they will have to be the victors.”
If you appreciate this article, share it with friends and subscribe to World-Outlook (for free) by clicking on the link below.
Type your email in the box below and click on “SUBSCRIBE.” You will receive a notification in your in-box on which you will have to click to confirm your subscription.
Categories: Editorials, World Politics
Once again World-Outlook is leading the way by calmly but urgently sounding the necessary alarm. The greatest danger would be to ignore the gravity of what is already unfolding before our eyes. Beyond the horrific threats by Trump we see unprecedented war preparations in a growing number of imperialist and regional powers. As always the imperialists mask their war preparations behind the subterfuge of “peaceful” and “defensive” intentions. None of them “want” war, they never do. But the implacable economic logic of the worldwide crisis of stagnating capitalism drives sharpening competition and rivalries and inexorably to war.
NEW NUCLEAR ARMS RACE HEADING TO WAR
Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not stand behind us. They stand before us.
The largest nuclear arms race in history is already underway, proliferating across the world.
It began in 2010 with Obama’s 30-year $2 trillion upgrade and modernization of the US nuclear arsenal of death, and Obama’s ”Pivot to Asia” threat to China, which responded by increasing its nuclear arsenal. A new turning point came with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and repeated nuclear threats by Russia, and now the nuclear race has been brought into the open and vastly accelerated by the US war against Iran.
Within days of the US attack on Iran, on March 2, France announced a major nuclear weapons build-up and the extension of the French nuclear weapons “umbrella” to fight and now ten other European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom and Finland joined in September.
Poland announced in February it is moving to develop nuclear weapons. Sweden is debating nuclear weapons, as is Australia, South Korea (with 80% public support), and especially Japan and Germany. Why even “peace-loving” German Green Party leader, Joschka Fisher, is calling for a “Euro-Bomb” for Germany. Bundeswehr Brigadier General Frank Pieper and historian Harald Biermann, have gone even further, arguing that Berlin must urgently discuss tactical or standalone European nuclear solutions.
Right-wing Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi is expected to announce some form of renouncing Article 9 against war, and the initiation of a nuclear weapons program.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are clearly moving to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of “peaceful” nuclear power, as is likely the case with Türkiye, and perhaps countries like South Africa and Brazil, both of which previously had nuclear weapons programs.
Each day we hear more statements by more countries about the “need” to “explore” developing nuclear weapons. Naturally the reality under the table is already racing far ahead of any public statements. When the politicians say they’re “considering” nukes, that means they’re already working on it.
US imperialism has been on a course to war against rival Chinese imperialism for fifteen years now, and that march continues. The coming inter-imperialist third world war for world domination means everything will be up for grabs. Each ruling class is looking at its interests and options to grab their turf in the coming “reordering” of capitalism.
Military budgets have exploded to levels of the Cold War and approaching WWI and WWII.
Within the bigger war between the major imperialists will be many regional conflicts that intertwine. That was the case in the run-up to WWI and WWII.
We should have absolutely no doubt as to what is coming. The imperialists certainly don’t.