Fact-check: Examining False and Misleading Claims in Trump’s UN Address

Former President Donald Trump delivered an address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that contained numerous false and misleading statements, according to fact-checkers and subject matter experts who analyzed his remarks.

During his speech, Trump made several controversial claims about immigration, particularly regarding deportations to El Salvador. He thanked El Salvador for “receiving and jailing so many criminals” that he claimed had entered the United States under the Biden administration.

However, investigations by multiple news organizations revealed that approximately 90% of the 238 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Prison last March had no criminal record in the United States. Most of those who did have records were convicted of non-violent offenses such as shoplifting or traffic violations, despite the administration labeling all deportees as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

While U.S. Customs and Border Protection did document record numbers of encounters with undocumented immigrants at the southern border during President Biden’s term before a recent sharp decline, the percentage of individuals with criminal records remained consistently low and did not reach historic levels.

Trump also criticized the United Nations itself, claiming the organization only issues “strongly worded letters” without following up with action. “Empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action,” Trump said.

This characterization ignores the UN’s substantial track record of conflict resolution since its founding in 1945. The organization has successfully ended numerous conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war that claimed an estimated one million lives, as well as civil wars in Namibia, El Salvador, Mozambique, and Cambodia. While the UN has acknowledged failures, such as not preventing genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia during the 1990s, its peacekeeping operations have been effective in many regions.

The former president repeated his claim of having “ended seven wars,” which analysts have described as highly problematic. For example, while a U.S. and Qatari-brokered ceasefire ended 12 days of fighting between Israel and Iran in June, this followed Trump’s controversial decision to bomb Iranian uranium-enrichment facilities after previously promising to address the issue through negotiations. Many security experts doubt that the underlying conflict over Iran’s nuclear program has been resolved.

Trump’s pre-election promises to end the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza remain unfulfilled, and agreements reached in other global hotspots appear fragile or interim in nature.

On immigration policy, Trump claimed his administration “swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration” by detaining and deporting border crossers, stating, “Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border and removing illegal aliens from the United States, they simply stopped coming.”

While illegal border crossings did drop significantly during the early months of his presidency, immigration experts note that uncontrolled migration was not completely ended, and many of his administration’s policy initiatives faced legal challenges and court reversals.

Trump also made questionable assertions about European immigration policies, claiming European countries “are going to hell” due to what he termed a “globalist migration agenda” and “open borders.” This characterization misrepresents the European approach to immigration. Most EU and Schengen countries maintain strict external border controls while allowing free movement internally. The United Kingdom, which Trump often references, actually ended freedom of movement when it left the EU in 2020, implementing a points-based immigration system.

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Trump inaccurately suggested that European countries are still freely purchasing Russian oil and gas. While some European nations continue to import Russian energy resources, the EU has significantly reduced such imports since 2022 and banned most Russian oil imports. The bloc plans to phase out Russian energy imports entirely by 2027, though this requires unanimous approval for sanctions.

Trump concluded with dismissive comments about climate change, calling it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and claiming that predictions made by the UN “were wrong.” This directly contradicts the overwhelming scientific consensus, with studies showing that between 91% and 100% of climate scientists agree that human activity is causing global warming. Renewable energy technologies have repeatedly been demonstrated to be effective, affordable, and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels.