The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly was held under a slogan calling for “restoring trust and managing transformation.” Yet what happened in New York—and what happened two hundred miles away in Washington—revealed that the UN podium is no longer where decisions are made. It has become a mirror reflecting where decision-making has actually moved.
Three scenes unfolded simultaneously: U.S. President Donald Trump’s address from the podium; Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before an audience from which dozens of delegations walked out; and the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping despite his presence in the United States, followed by the absence of Egypt’s president from the podium for the fifth consecutive year, with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly attending in his place. Absence here is not merely a matter of protocol. Absence is a language of its own.
Trump’s September 22 speech was not a speech about an “international order.” It was a speech about power—a power that sees itself as having ended wars and opened others, and that regards the United Nations as an institution that ratifies rather than decides.
He said he had ended eight conflicts, including the war in Gaza, according to his account, and that the Security Council had endorsed his 20-point plan and the proposed “Board of Peace.” He then made Iran the centerpiece of his speech: a regime he described as the “number one terror regime,” American-Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities, the destruction of naval and air capabilities, and an explicit threat: a deal that would rebuild Iran—or the “obliteration” of the Islamic Republic. He added that if a deal were reached, it would come after the U.S. midterm elections in November, not before them.
The message was clear: Washington was not seeking a UN mandate. It was presenting results and asking others to align economically in isolating Iran, while reminding the hall that American military and economic power had once again become the primary instrument. In this speech, the United Nations was not the guarantor of international law; it was a seal to be placed afterward on what had already been settled on the ground and in the White House.
Two days later, Netanyahu took the podium. Around seventy delegations left the hall or walked out. Egypt was among them. He called those who left “moral cowards,” described the accusation that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza as “the biggest lie of the century,” and defended the war against Iran as “one of the easiest decisions” because, had it not been taken, “we would all be dead.” He thanked Trump as a partner in the “battle against the barbarians.”
The speech was aimed less at the General Assembly than at the Israeli public ahead of an imminent election, and at an American ally he did not meet in New York because Trump was hosting Xi Jinping in Washington. Netanyahu arrived for only a few hours, without a formal meeting with the U.S. president, and left projecting the image of a besieged leader fighting on “seven fronts.”
The symbolism was harsher than the words themselves: a state that has historically relied on international legitimacy was addressing the organization from a hall in which half of its audience had walked out. The podium did not provide it with cover; it exposed an isolation managed through power rather than consensus.
The most striking paradox was that the Chinese president was on the East Coast of the United States on a state visit with Trump, yet did not make the trip to the United Nations headquarters.
Vice President Han Zheng represented Beijing in New York, speaking about multilateralism, a two-state solution, and the sovereignty of the countries of the region.
Xi has personally addressed the General Assembly only once since taking office, in 2015, on the occasion of the UN’s 70th anniversary. His absence this time is not merely bureaucratic routine. The timing suggests that the “Group of Two”—Washington and Beijing—regard the management of trade, artificial intelligence, and the balance of deterrence as more consequential than a speech in the UN chamber. Multilateralism is upheld as a slogan in Chinese rhetoric, but its practice is postponed when the other party is the White House rather than the General Assembly.
This is not merely a disregard for the organization. It is an announcement that the center of gravity has shifted from the collective podium to the bilateral table between two nuclear-armed economic powers.
Where Is Egypt? Repeated Absence—and Representation by Proxy
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has not taken the podium for the fifth consecutive year since in-person meetings resumed after the pandemic. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly led the delegation, as he did during the previous session, and delivered Egypt’s address.
The Egyptian speech was neither a cry of outrage nor an exercise in grandstanding. It was a form of political presence—but at a lower level of protocol.
The repeated absence of the president is interpreted in different ways in foreign capitals: as an attempt to avoid direct friction with a U.S. administration applying pressure over Gaza, Iran, and arms; as an assessment that the UN podium no longer produces policy; or as a domestic and regional calculation that the real engagement takes place through bilateral channels and mediation rather than through public speeches before the world’s cameras.
Whether these interpretations are correct, or whether several of them overlap, the result is the same: Egypt is present in the text but absent from the symbolic image of the head of state in an international system that is governed by symbols almost as much as by decisions.
Symbols have a price—and I do not mean Egypt alone. Nigeria and South Africa also did not send their presidents. Africa’s three largest economies were represented by proxy during a week that is supposed to be the week of leaders. Africa is demanding a permanent seat on the Security Council while remaining absent from the highest platform through which it could demonstrate that it deserves one.
So what are these scenes telling us collectively?
The United Nations has not collapsed. Around 130 leaders attended. But its function has changed. The chamber has become a stage for three parallel messages that do not meet:
The message of American power:
We decide, and then ask others to align.
The message of Israeli isolation:
We fight and will continue to fight, and we will speak to our own voters even if half the delegations leave the hall in protest.
The message of the Chinese-American bilateral relationship:
Real decisions are made in Washington, not in New York.
And then there is the message of the middle powers, with Egypt at their heart: We defend international law, multilateralism, and reform—but from the position of those who no longer believe that the podium alone is enough.
Multilateralism has not been abolished; it has been hollowed out. It is used as a cover after the fact, as a platform for protest, or as a stage for countries that cannot afford to stay away because they need legitimacy more than they need the spectacle of absence.
Egypt’s question is not simply a question of absence. It is not necessary for every president to appear every year as a ritual. The deeper question is this: Does Egypt have a project to articulate in the voice of its head of state at a moment when the international system is fragmenting, or is it content merely to manage risks from the second row?
Egypt is not a marginal state. It has demographic and civilizational weight, the Suez Canal, borders with Gaza, and a role in Sudan, the Red Sea, and Libya, as well as a mediation role that several capitals still depend upon.
This is a reservoir of influence that cannot be managed through proxy representation indefinitely if the world is rearranging its tables of power rather than merely its tables of speeches.
An absence may be wise under particular circumstances. But when it is repeated for five years, it becomes a policy. And policies are interpreted, even when they are not declared.
As for the General Assembly, it will continue to meet. Speeches will continue to be delivered. But anyone who wants to understand where the maps are being drawn should look this week at two parallel lines: the New York podium, filled with words but emptied of some of the major players, and the Washington table, where those who decided that New York was no longer worth an additional stop on the journey sat down to negotiate.
The podium is one. The messages are different.
Those who fail to read that difference may think that the organization itself is merely sick. The reality is that it is exposing the sickness of the international system: power has once again become bilateral or unilateral, while collective legitimacy…
