Trump and Xi bypass the UN while small nations pay the price

By Aoife Gallagher · Reporting from Dublin · September 20, 2026

As world leaders gather in New York, the US and China prioritize bilateral deals over multilateral rules, leaving the UN as a hollow stage for a fractured world.

The United Nations is not in freefall, but it is trapped in a trauma center. That is how Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group describes the institution as leaders return to New York for the week of September 20, 2026, according to UN News and Rappler. But let us be honest about why the patient is bleeding. The UN is being hollowed out by the big capitals. While nearly 130 heads of state gather to perform the rituals of diplomacy, the real power has migrated to private rooms and bilateral summits. The United States and China are treating the world’s primary peace infrastructure as an optional accessory, and it is the small nations of the periphery who will pay for this negligence.

The side-deal as the new diplomacy

The most telling image of this assembly is the one missing from the rostrum. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is skipping New York entirely. Instead, he is holding one-on-one talks with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday, as reported by Rappler. This is the new map of leverage. The superpowers no longer feel the need to justify their actions to the 193 Member States of the General Assembly. They prefer the efficiency of the deal over the friction of the rule.

Some will argue that the General Assembly remains the only place where the global south has a voice. Richard Gowan notes on UN News that for middle powers and small countries, the assembly is still their main stage. This is a comforting thought, but it is a delusion of agency. A stage is where you perform; a boardroom is where you decide. When the two largest economies on earth decide that the UN is a place for rhetoric rather than resolution, the "stage" becomes a theater of the absurd.

We have seen this pattern before. During the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, as documented by UN News, the major economies chose the G20 over the UN. The record shows that when the big capitals feel a systemic crisis, they build a smaller, more exclusive club to manage the fallout. This time, the club is even smaller.

The financial leash of the big capital

Power in New York is not just about who speaks, but who pays. The United States paid $725 million in contributions to the regular budget this week, as noted by Rappler. It was a tactical payment to avoid the loss of its vote at the assembly. Yet, Washington still owes the organization more than a billion dollars.

This is not a clerical error. It is a leash. By maintaining massive arrears, the US ensures that the UN Secretariat remains anxious and compliant. This fiscal brinkmanship coincides with the end of António Guterres's term at the end of 2026. It is a classic move of leverage: starve the institution, then demand structural reforms in exchange for the crumbs of its budget.

This unilateralism extends to the very technology that will define the next century. António Guterres has called for common guardrails to avoid a "gigantic disaster" from AI. Donald Trump has dismissed these risks as a "hoax." He claims there is a "sick conspiracy" against AI development. While the Secretary-General pleads for a multilateral safety net, the US administration is already moving toward national emergency declarations to secure its own power systems.

The refuge of the paralyzed

When the Security Council is paralyzed, the General Assembly is supposed to be the fail-safe. This is the mechanism of the Suez Crisis. In 1956, when the Security Council was frozen by the competing interests of big capitals, the General Assembly stepped in to mandate the first military UN peacekeeping operation, as recorded by UN News.

Today, the Security Council is once again a graveyard of vetoes. We see it in the more than four-year-old war in Ukraine, where Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Sergei Lavrov will trade accusations. We see it in the Middle East, where Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak on Thursday while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is forced to appear via video after the US denied him a visa.

The General Assembly is the only place left for the desperate to be heard, but it lacks the teeth to enforce its will. The result is a global order that looks like the streets of Midtown Manhattan during assembly week. Gothamist reports that the city DOT has identified 20 "gridlock days." Traffic crawls to less than 4 mph.

The security apparatus of the host state takes absolute precedence over everything else. The NYPD and FBI lock down the East Side to protect the motorcades of the powerful, while the actual business of peace remains stuck in a permanent jam.

The UN is being reduced to a luxury hotel for diplomats. The big powers will continue to use the assembly for photo opportunities while they carve up the world in Washington and Beijing. Unless the member states find a way to insulate the organization from the financial whims of the US and the bilateral ambitions of China, the UN will remain a trauma center with no medicine, presiding over a world that has forgotten how to follow the rules.

Trump and Xi bypass the UN while small nations pay the price

The side-deal as the new diplomacy

The financial leash of the big capital

The refuge of the paralyzed

Sources