As the United Nations General Assembly opens this year, happy talk about future goals has ceded ground to a survivalist mindset. Even the theme of the 81st session of UNGA—“Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All”—reveals deep-seated anxieties. Trust that must be restored, after all, has been lost.

Global conflict is at its highest point since 1945. The 80th UNGA session did not bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine or the war in Sudan. In February, the United States and Israel began a new conflict in Iran that left Tehran in a position to menace the Strait of Hormuz. The Security Council is gridlocked: This month, Russia and China vetoed a U.S. bid to continue independent sanctions monitoring on Iran’s nuclear program.

All this has led to a sense of malaise at the United Nations. The organization’s sustainable development goals, or SDGs, are behind target—despite U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres leaning heavily on the SDG agenda. Guterres concludes 10 years at the helm at the end of this year. Diplomats at the U.N. headquarters in New York City are waiting to exhale as they speculate on how the Security Council will manage the selection process to replace him.

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, the newly installed General Assembly president, said in a recent interview with Foreign Policy that he would consider trust restored if he could convince member states that much deeper reforms were needed.

“I’m sorry to say … we are playing Legos. We bring one block, another block, put them together, call it reform. We’re dealing with superstructure, not changing the underlying logic of this place,” Rahman said. “National and global responsibility is equally important, and I’m going to mention this point in my speech.”

The centerpiece of the high-level week is the general debate, when some 120 world leaders hold forth in the General Assembly Hall. The order of the first two speakers, from Brazil and the United States, is nonnegotiable by custom. Then the jockeying for key speaking positions begins.

There are some notable newcomers early in the week: British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi both take the podium on Tuesday. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron, known for his long speeches, will make his farewell address to the General Assembly on Tuesday before leaving office in May.

Last-minute no-shows include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was scheduled to speak on Wednesday, forcing the delegation to adjust schedules around Germany’s foreign minister. Germany’s moves are closely watched in New York. Driven by major voluntary donations to U.N. programs, Germany has been the system’s second-largest financial contributor for nearly a decade, serving as a counterweight to the U.S. retreat from U.N. funding under President Donald Trump.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s absence has drawn the most comment, though he has only traveled to U.N. headquarters for the general debate once, in 2015. This week, Xi will be in Washington for a summit with Trump and will not make the brief trip to New York. Guterres told reporters that, although he would like Xi to come, the Chinese president “has been a staunch defender of a world order based on multilateralism, with the U.N. at its center.”

The assembly usually turns out in full force for the U.S. president’s address, but Trump might cut a less imposing figure than last year, when he marked his return to UNGA with a scorched-earth address that questioned the very purpose of the United Nations. But the past year has exposed the limits of the U.S. president’s muscular, go-it-alone approach to foreign policy.

Trump’s use of tariffs as political leverage has backfired, most strikingly with Canada. Diplomats question why the world’s strongest military has achieved little seven months into the Iran war. Members of Trump’s Board of Peace—seen by some critics to be a potential U.N. rival when it was launched last year—will be in New York this week with little to show for its original mandate of peacebuilding in Gaza.

Last year, the strongest card in Trump’s hand was his threat to withhold financial support. Yet a looming deadline forced the United States to pay a sizable chunk of what it owed in contributions to the U.N. to avoid losing its vote in the General Assembly this term.

The Trump administration had held out on payments to the peacekeeping budget and to what is known as the regular budget, which funds the General Assembly and Security Council and keeps the lights on at headquarters. U.S. officials—among them the ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz—have described shrinking the U.N. budget as putting the organization on a “diet.”

A high-level diplomat recently questioned how the United States could argue that the U.N. should return to its roots and focus more on peace and security while simultaneously reducing its contributions. The Trump administration seems especially inclined to cherry-pick what it contributes with peacekeeping dollars.

In early August, the Trump administration promised to pay a portion of the U.S. arrears, and this month, it forked over $725 million toward the regular budget and a further $102 million for the U.N. Support Office in Haiti, which provides logistical backing for security forces in the country. (A U.N. spokesperson said the United States indicated that contributions were also forthcoming for the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.) An unpaid balance of $4.2 billion remains for the combined regular and peacekeeping budgets.

As usual, while the action in the General Assembly Hall takes center stage, the real drama might happen in the corridors. In his final high-level week press briefing, Guterres noted that he held 140 bilateral meetings with member states last year.

Trump has a compressed calendar. He arrived on Monday, when he was scheduled to meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. On Tuesday, Trump will take the podium and is scheduled to hold a handful of bilateral meetings—including with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Burnham, Takaichi, and a group of Persian Gulf leaders. Trump will then depart for Washington ahead of his summit with Xi. Afterward, Waltz will be flanked by a team of retired ambassadors fanning out to conduct high-level meetings.

Governments facing sanctions or travel restrictions typically take the high-level week as an opportunity for a full program. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will likely have dignitaries streaming through Moscow’s office. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian received permission from the U.S. State Department to travel to U.N. headquarters less than a week before his scheduled address to the General Assembly on Wednesday. He will, no doubt, have meetings on the margins with leaders eager for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen.

Sideline events tend to spotlight thorny challenges such as sea level rise, energy security, and pandemic prevention. This year’s high-level week comes as several artificial intelligence industry leaders are expounding on the dangers of AI, fueling panic in Washington and beyond. Two weeks ago, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned against the use of autonomous weapons, saying that he was “horrified by reports that fully autonomous drones launched by the Russian Federation killed three Ukrainians.”

The AI conversation at UNGA last year, by contrast, focused more on the technology’s potential advantages. Guterres was especially enthusiastic; at the AI Impact Summit in India in February, his remarks highlighted how AI might improve the stagnant progress toward achieving the SDGs. As concerns grow, though, several states are organizing side events on existential risks.

Nigeria is hosting an event about autonomous weapons on Wednesday, co-sponsored by Austria, Belgium, Brazil, and Mexico in cooperation with the U.N. human rights office and other organizations. The next day, AI Safety Connect will hold a conversation on AI governance that includes senior politicians, technology executives, and digital rights advocates. Greece and India have partnered with Security Council Report on a Friday sideline event focused on AI and maritime security.

Once again, the Ukrainian mission has organized a full program for Zelensky. Ahead of his address on Wednesday, Zelensky and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha will lead the sixth summit of the International Crimea Platform. As the fifth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, the president wants to spur allies into continuing their support for Ukraine.

The “New York Declaration,” a road map for ending the war in Gaza and creating a Palestinian state presented at a July 2025 conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, dominated the conversation last year. On Tuesday, diplomats in New York will hold an event marking the anniversary of the declaration as well as the Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, which won Security Council approval last year.

In a parallel effort, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that the United Kingdom and Jordan would convene countries to lead a call for action on health and humanitarian access in Gaza.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the General Assembly remotely again on Thursday after the United States extended a visa restriction against his travel to New York for a second consecutive year. This is noteworthy on two counts: The 20-point plan for Gaza imagines the Palestinian Authority taking on a greater role in Gaza; and separately, Pezeshkian was granted a visa despite the ongoing Iran war.

The real test of White House influence at the United Nations could be clarified after UNGA by the selection process to replace Guterres. There is still no consensus candidate, and there is no formal deadline, though Guterres’s term ends on Dec. 31. The Security Council selects a candidate to recommend for approval by the full General Assembly. That gives the council’s five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—veto power over any of the candidates.

To reach consensus, the Security Council relies on secret straw polls, with members marking each of the candidates “encourage,” “discourage,” or “no opinion.” The results are generally leaked to the press within hours. A third straw poll on Sept. 18 did little to clarify the field, though it did convince one candidate to withdraw, bringing the total number to seven. A successful candidate requires the backing of nine Security Council members, so approval is also needed from at least four of the 10 elected members, which serve two-year terms.

France, which has the monthly rotating council presidency, is expected to hold another straw poll after the high-level week. A decision to hold off on using color-coded ballots, which would reveal potential vetoes from permanent members, might have been sought to avoid the contest becoming a talking point in the corridors.

Theoretically, the General Assembly could repudiate the council’s recommendation, but that would go against 80 years of history.

“Look, if the veto powers can agree on a horse for the next U.N. secretary-general, there will be a lot of other U.N. members who will vote for that,” said Richard Gowan, the program director for global issues and institutions at the International Crisis Group, recalling the legend of the Roman Emperor Caligula promising to make his favorite race horse a consul.

Gowan, however, said it would be in the interest of member states to support Guterres’s likely successor. “What most member states will be doing is aiming to get on the right side of that person and see if they can plant a few appointees in the next U.N. administration,” he said. “They’re not going to kick up a fuss over a matter of principle—well, certainly not publicly.”

Some diplomats still anticipate a late entrant to the race because many candidates reportedly have a high “discourage” quotient, indicating the possibility of one or more vetoes. Rahman, the General Assembly president, said that it is “never too late,” as long as the race remains open, for someone to put forward their candidacy and come before the General Assembly to present their views.

As the sun sets on the Guterres era—convulsed by a dramatic increase in conflict and a return to great-power competition—the future of the U.N. remains clouded by ever-greater uncertainty.