Trump’s Iran choice lands hard at the U.N.

President Donald Trump stood before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday and put the choice in plain terms. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Most of Iran’s delegation walked out of the chamber as he spoke. The Cuban delegation left as well when he turned to Havana. The war he described is now nearly seven months old. Launched in February as Operation Epic Fury with Israel, it killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the first day. His son Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded him and has not appeared publicly.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian took the same dais. He held up photos of children he said were killed by U.S. and Israeli bombs. “Yesterday, the United States president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism,” he said through a translator. He added, “We will never bow our head or bend at the knee. Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.” Within minutes, the sole member of the U.S. delegation walked out.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke after Pezeshkian and rejected the lecture. He called the prior day’s indirect talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and American mediators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner significant, then answered the human-rights claim directly. “Slaughtering 10,000 of your own people in protests is a violation of the U.N. … I think sponsoring terrorist organizations in the region to attack your neighbors, attack energy infrastructure, attack civilian sites is a violation of the U.N. system.” Rubio asked the sharper question of the regime itself: “Do they want to be a country or do they want to be a revolution?”

Pezeshkian’s side of the ledger is not absent from the record. He framed Iran as ready for talks without “the language of force,” denied seeking nuclear weapons while rejecting limits on peaceful nuclear technology, and blamed the United States and Israel for regional instability. A United Nations Human Rights Council report found “reasonable grounds to believe” the United States committed war crimes in indiscriminate attacks on an Iranian school and residential area in February. Those claims stand as stated. Rubio’s reply was that a government that kills its own protesters and underwrites attacks on neighbors, energy infrastructure, and civilian sites has little standing to invoke the U.N. system it habitually breaches.

The same week brought the first known indirect contact since a ceasefire collapsed in July. Araghchi and the American mediators communicated on the sidelines. Trump told reporters that Steve and Jared had a very productive meeting with mediators of Iran and that he heard momentum for a deal. He has said he believes an agreement could follow the November midterm elections. An interim understanding reached in June, which would have eased financial sanctions and unfrozen assets in return for nuclear talks, unraveled within weeks over shipping rules in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran wants control and fees; Washington rejects both. No public breakthrough followed the New York shuttle.

Washington moved on secondary pressure anyway. Secondary sanctions on countries that allow Iranian flights were set to take effect Wednesday. Iranian media reported disruptions on routes to Baghdad and Muscat while other international routes continued. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, answered with a threat to the neighborhood: “If any country joins the United States in this adventure, its airports will no longer be able to operate flights. The choice is yours.”

Energy markets show why the strait and the sanctions matter to American households. Brent crude has hovered around $100 a barrel, near two-week lows after earlier spikes. Roughly a third of Persian Gulf oil is estimated missing from global supplies. Shortages have hit diesel and other refined products, feeding inflation. Saudi Arabia has sold 60 million barrels of Gulf oil for this month and next, to be delivered beyond the strait. UAE exports have recovered to pre-war levels. Traffic through Hormuz has picked up even with near-daily risk, as producers pay steep wartime premiums and move crude with transponders off before transferring beyond the choke point. The Houthis’ pressure on Red Sea routes has compounded the strain.

Trump’s wider address challenged the premises of the institution hosting him. He rejected “global government,” stressed national sovereignty, and cast the Iran campaign as peace through strength aimed at keeping a nuclear weapon out of Tehran’s hands. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, in farewell remarks, warned that fault lines were widening and urged powers to recognize limits. French President Emmanuel Macron and others called for renewed commitment to international law and multilateral cooperation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, confronting Russian strikes that killed at least two and injured dozens in Kyiv, said de-escalation steps “are important, are needed before winter, now.” Rubio, asked about an invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the G20 gathering Trump will host at his Doral resort in December, said the United States sees an opportunity for engagement with the president and other leaders and hopes the invitation will be accepted.

The ordinary costs are already measurable in fuel prices, interest rates, and the risk premium on every barrel that still moves. The next concrete pressure point is the aviation sanctions now taking effect and Rezaei’s warning that any neighbor enforcing them could lose the ability to operate its own airports.