Albanese at UN General Assembly: PM downplays Trump meeting on sidelines

A globe-trotting Anthony Albanese is about to kick off a ten-day world tour encompassing the PM’s first UN address, a chance to cozy up with King Charles and Keir Starmer and even a possible tete-a-tete with Donald Trump.

Starting this weekend, the Prime Minister will be aiming to use his trip to the US, London and UAE, to drum up overseas investment in Australia, push for climate change action and showcase his social media ban to other world leaders.

While Donald Trump hinted during a press conference this week they’d meet in the US next week, the Australian side is playing down the changes of a first face-to-face occurring between the PM and POTUS on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

After the G7 snubbing, when Mr Trump quit all his planned meetings to return to DC early to plot his strikes on Iran’s nuclear facility, the dampened mood is understandable.

Mr Albanese has preferred to wait until summit season to try and secure his first meeting with the US President, but if he returns home empty-handed, this strategy will come under intense questioning.

Albanese’s UN debut

The Prime Minister’s trip to New York is notable because unlike Mr Trump, it is the Labor leader’s first time addressing the UN General Assembly.

He is expected to also spruik Australia’s social media ban for under-16’s and commit to the new 2035 Climate targets announced this week.

After a week of wheeling and dealing in New York, Mr Albanese is expected to travel to the UK to meet with Sir Keir and King Charles III. While there he is expected to attend the Global Progress Action Summit where he will speak on climate change.

The great irony of the 80th gathering of the United Nations General Assembly will be the meeting of world leaders in the shadows of its impotence.

Serving little more than an international equivalent of a geopolitical watering hole, the so-called High Level week, stretching from September 23 to 30, will be dominated by crisis, two wars and one man — Donald Trump.

“We are gathering in turbulent – even uncharted – waters,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, opening the session.

Mr Trump and his MAGA base loathe the United Nations, which they see as the epitome of the global elite, corrupted by leftism and Chinese influence.

But the populist right is far from the UN’s only critics.

Such is the ineffectiveness of the organisation, compounded by its near-invisible leader, Mr Guterres — who beat Kevin Rudd for the job after the Turnbull government failed to back the former Australian prime minister’s ambitious bid for it — one of the big themes of this year will be how to reform the body, 80 years on from its formation.

Those who don’t openly complain about the organisation’s failure to effectively respond to and lead on the globe’s most pressing issues, simply find it an easy international appointment to skip.

Seated seven rows from the front on the far side next to Armenia, Australia will be represented this year for the first time by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The Labor leader has yet to address the UN’s halls — 2025 will mark his first appearance, and he will be accompanied by Mr Rudd, who serves as Ambassador to the United States.

Dual conflict crisis

The UN’s reform agenda will be a big focus. The UN Security Council is an obvious target. One of its permanent members with veto voting rights, Russia, has launched an illegal invasion and is supported by another permanent member China.

It has been a long time since anyone seriously looked to the UNSC to resolve the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

For French President Emmanuel Macron, both conflicts are a priority.

And they will be high on the agenda.

On Tuesday, France and Saudi Arabia will chair a conference on “The Question of Palestine.”

“When we go to Asia and many places, when we say Ukraine, the answer is Gaza as Article One of the double standard,” Xavier Chatel, who serves as diplomatic adviser for strategic affairs and disarmament to Mr Macron, said.

The conference wants to “catalyse concrete, timebound and coordinated international action toward the implementation of the two-State solution.”

Australia is listed last to speak at the conference and its decision to join the UK, Canada and France in recognising Palestine as a state will be high-profile news.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another critic of the UN, will speak later in the week. The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas won’t appear — his visa and those of 80 other Palestinians were blocked by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This move is highly unusual as the US is supposed to facilitate international access to the UN.

The focus on the Middle East will not entirely be about Israel and Gaza though. Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is set to speak on September 24, marking the first time Syria’s head of state will take part in UNGA.

Making Meetings Great Again

But Donald Trump will be the showstopper. For all his rejections of globalism and embrace of America First, the New York-based UN is a forum he can’t resist.

During his first term as President, he addressed it each year from 2017 to 2020. He will return to speak second, as is customary, after Brazil’s Lula da Silva, with whom he is fighting over the treatment of Mr Lula’s populist opponent, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison for trying to overturn his election loss.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will the other star-power leader to speak but he will be more keenly watched for any potential meeting with the US President, a possibility which has been hinted at.

For Australians, UNGA could be the place where Mr Albanese finally gets his one-on-one with Mr Trump, or not.

Expect Australia to push its attention-grabbing social media ban for teens on the sidelines. The European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen, who is looking to copy Australia’s move, could join Mr Albanese at this event.

Climate change will be a big focus with Mr Lula, who is hosting COP30 in Brazil this year expected to use his customary first speech of the session to push the issue.

One notable absence will be India’s Narendra Modi, who has been burnt by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Russian oil and is no longer planning to attend. Mr Modi has instead preferred to hold hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin alongside President Xi Jinping in China.

The theme for UNGA’s 80th session is “Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.”

But whether anyone attending leaves truly believing that is the mantra for another 80 years of the UN is unlikely.