Behind the Curtain at the UNGA
In World Briefing Plus this weekend, I told paid subscribers how many people who had planned to be in New York for the UN General Assembly never made it. The reason: visas. In Africa’s case, ministers, delegates and invited speakers alike were turned down by US consulates. Uganda’s delegation, which normally runs to 30–50 officials, was cut to just five, including Vice President Jessica Alupo. Sudan’s leader was still awaiting a visa as the session opened.
Conversations with sources, and our own observations at high-profile venues such as the Concordia Summit, pointed to noticeably fewer African and Global South voices than in past years. Colombians were a notable exception. “That’s why there are so many Colombians here,” one well-connected source told me. The source was referring to how much easier US visas have become for Colombians since Trump-endorsed Abelardo de la Espriella took office in August. The contrast with last year is stark: at the 2025 UNGA, Washington revoked then-President Gustavo Petro’s visa.
Others told us they had deliberately routed through third countries such as Ireland, where US border officers pre-clear travellers on foreign soil. That way, a refusal leaves them in Dublin rather than detained in New York. Even so, one foreign national told us she was sent to secondary inspection and questioned at length.
The chill isn’t new. At a breakfast briefing during last year’s UNGA, the American moderator declared what was billed as an open discussion off the record, to keep outspoken guests from “ending up on some State Department list.”
For the second year running, Washington has also refused visas to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation. The UN says that breaches the US’s obligations as host country.
All of which raises the question: at what point might the UN move the General Assembly to Geneva so that delegations aren’t shut out? It’s not far-fetched. In 1988, after the US refused Yasser Arafat a visa, the entire Assembly decamped to Geneva to hear him. The GA also met in London and Paris in its early years, before its permanent New York headquarters opened in 1952.
Speaking of Abelardo de la Espriella: Colombia’s new president, a former criminal defence lawyer known as “El Tigre” (the Tiger), has kept his campaign promise to stay home, having pledged not to leave the country during his four-year term. An official media note sent to us by the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit confirms it: Vice-President José Manuel Restrepo, not the president, will meet the Secretary-General tomorrow. Restrepo is already making the rounds. At Trump’s Shield of the Americas meeting on the UNGA sidelines, he introduced himself to the US president as “the vice-president of El Tigre.”
We question the wisdom of this policy. Few leaders need to travel as relentlessly as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, but every head of state needs to command the international stage from time to time: to argue their cause, press the flesh and extract support. That’s hard to do by proxy.
That said, not everyone sees a problem. As one former senior Colombian diplomat told us: "The current relationship between Bogotá and the Trump administration, through [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio, is doing well. So the president doesn't need to go to New York. Besides, he has no need to go to the UN, as nothing important happens there."
Trump's Belarus potash deal hits two snags
Donald Trump says the US is working on “a massive deal” to buy potash from Belarus. “The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada,” he posted on Truth Social on Monday.
The first problem is getting it out. Sanctions have cut Belarus off from Lithuania’s port of Klaipėda, its traditional export route, and from routes through Ukraine, Poland and Latvia. That leaves Russian ports, so any potash bound for US farmers would move through Russia. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe was quick to call it “blood potash.”
The second problem is Belarus itself. Its authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, says there’s nothing to sell. “Even if we wanted to supply [potash] to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes — everything is contracted,” he said.
Washington eased sanctions on Belarusian potash last December in exchange for political prisoner releases, which World Briefing . For now, it appears to have bought a deal Minsk can’t deliver.
Exclusive video: Trump at the UN
Shot on the UN grounds as day one of the General Debate wrapped up, this World Briefing video unpacks Donald Trump’s address to the 81st General Assembly. Was it a speech to world leaders or to voters back home? And what did he have to say about Ukraine, Iran and, unexpectedly, UNESCO?
I break down what stood out, what didn’t add up, and what I’m hearing on the sidelines.
The full video is for World Briefing Plus subscribers 👇 If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, there’s no better time: new annual subscriptions are 30% off for a limited time.
