Fact-check: Trump misleads about ending 7 wars, US economy, renewable energy in UN speech

In a lengthy, no-holds-barred speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Donald Trump aggressively critiqued other nations on a range of policies.

Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and said climate change policies, along with permissive immigration laws, were “suicidal.”

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He sparred with Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who spoke immediately before Trump. Lula criticized recent deadly U.S. attacks on boats from Venezuela, which the Trump administration characterized as drug-carrying vessels. Lula also praised the successful prosecution of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, who sought to overthrow an election he lost.

Trump, who considers Bolsonaro an ally, said he looks forward to meeting with Lula but added that he’s “very sorry to say” that Brazil “is doing poorly and will continue to do poorly.” 

Trump criticized the U.N. itself, recounting how he and first lady Melania Trump were jerked to a stop on a stalled escalator at U.N. headquarters, and recalling a bid he’d made to renovate the complex that lost to a “far inferior” competing offer. 

Trump also called out the U.N. for failing to support his efforts to broker agreements in military conflicts. “All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up,” Trump said. “It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war.”

Trump misleadingly said he ended 7 wars, obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities

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“In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars.”

This is Mostly False.

Trump had a hand in deals that eased conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand; Israel and Iran; and India and Pakistan — although some of those countries’ leaders dispute his role.

The U.S. was involved in a temporary peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda that experts said is significant but remains shaky. In a conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia, there is no solution on the table. And with Kosovo and Serbia, there is little evidence a potential war was brewing.

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan joined Trump at the White House on Aug. 8 to sign a joint peace declaration after nearly 40 years of conflict. The deal, brokered by Trump, is not a final peace agreement, but represents a move in that direction, foreign policy experts said. 

Russia and Ukraine are “killing anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 young soldiers mostly, mostly soldiers on both sides, every single week.”

Trump overstated how many people are dying each week in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated there have been nearly 250,000 Russian military deaths, said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior defense and security adviser. One thousand Russian civilians also have been killed, he said. (CSIS estimates largely align with British and U.S. intelligence estimates, CNN reported.) 

On the Ukrainian side, there have been 80,000 military deaths. The U.N. Human Right Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported about 14,100 civilian deaths.

In total, that’s about 345,100 deaths since the start of the conflict. The war began Feb. 24, 2022. That amounts to roughly 264 deaths per day or 1,848 deaths per week, thousands short of Trump’s figures. 

Trump’s number is closer if you consider casualties broadly, counting deaths and injuries, Cancian said. There have been a total of about 1.53 million casualties, or about 1,172 per day. That’s around 8,204 casualties per week. 

The U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities “totally obliterat(ed) everything.”

About three months after the U.S. attack on Fordo, a major underground Iranian nuclear site, it’s not clear how much damage U.S. bombs created.

Trump said the facilities were “completely and totally obliterated” hours after the June 22 attack. At the time, experts told PolitiFact that a few hours was far too soon for Trump to know the extent of the damage with any certainty. 

Officials still haven’t publicly released a definitive damage assessment. 

An Aug. 20 analysis by The New York Times said subsequent assessments have found an increasing likelihood that significant damage resulted from the strike. However, the Times concluded that “with so many variables — and so many unknowns — it may be difficult to ever really be certain.”

Trump touted efforts to thwart Venezuelan drug trafficking, repeats misleading statement about migrant children 

Trump referred often to Venezuela and his administration’s recent deadly attacks on Venezuelan boats. 

“We’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuela terrorists and trafficking networks led by (Venezuela President) Nicolas Maduro.”

The U.S. military has struck at least three boats off Venezuela’s coast since Sept. 2, killing at least 17 people.

The Venezuelan government allows military officers to be involved in drug trafficking. But there isn’t evidence the government is engaged in organized drug trafficking to the U.S., experts on drugs and Venezuela told PolitiFact. 

Venezuela plays a minor role in trafficking drugs that reach the U.S., experts said. 

Under the Biden administration there were “millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, from prisons, from mental institutions, drug dealers all over the world.”

Pants on Fire! There is no evidence that countries are emptying their prisons, or that mental institutions are sending people to illegally migrate to the U.S. 

The Biden administration “lost more than 300,000 children, little children, who were trafficked into the United States. … They’re lost or they’re dead.”

This distorts federal data. An August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear for immigration court dates. That happened from October 2018 through September 2023, including some of Trump’s first term.

The report said children who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation or forced labor. But it did not cite data on children trafficked, missing or dead.

The report did not say the children were missing. Immigration experts previously told PolitiFact that describing them that way is misleading.

Trump overstates U.S. economic gains on his watch

Trump cast the U.S. economy as the hottest in the world on a variety of metrics. The numbers at home, however, are so-so.

“We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration.”

The unemployment rate has ticked upward during Trump’s tenure, from 4% in January, when he was inaugurated, to 4.3% in August. Nonfarm job creation has slowed, with employment rising by about 0.3% from January to August. That’s about half the rate of increase in the equivalent period in 2024 under President Joe Biden.

“In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion” in investments. 

Trump has cited a long list of promised foreign investments, but there is no guarantee that the full amounts promised will come to fruition, and some of this investment would have occurred regardless of who was president, experts said.

“Historically, large-scale investment announcements often overpromise and underdeliver,” University of Louisville professor Roman V. Yampolskiy told PolitiFact in May. “There is a performative element to them, especially in politically charged contexts. They function as political theater as much as economic commitment.”

The projected cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over the next five years is $169 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, so the $17 trillion amount Trump cited, if it materializes, would account for 10% of the entire U.S. economic output.

“Under my leadership … grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.”

The trends are mixed.

Overall grocery prices are up 2.7% compared with August 2024. 

Mortgage rates are down, from 6.96% when Trump was sworn in to 6.26% today.

Inflation is 2.9%, with rates rising for the last four consecutive months.

“We’ve implemented the largest tax cuts in American history.”

We have rated a similar claim Mostly False.

Trump’s domestic spending bill extends 2017 tax cuts that otherwise would have expired. When those extensions are factored in, the tax savings from Trump’s 2025 law rank third on the list of biggest tax cut laws since 1980.

The bottom-line impact on Americans’ tax liabilities beginning in 2026 might not be dramatic because people are already paying the lower tax rates that the 2025 law saved from expiration. 

The 2025 law adds some new tax breaks, such as for income from tips and overtime and for Americans 65 and older. By historical standards, the scale of those targeted tax cuts are modest.

Trump takes aim at renewable energy, claims cheaper electricity bills

Trump criticized other countries’ decisions to shift to renewable energy — something the U.S. was also doing prior to his presidency. But he was wrong about the scale of wind power in China, electricity prices in the U.S. and whether the U.S. has increased fossil-fuel production on his watch.

“I give China a lot of credit, they build (windmills), but they (have) very few wind farms.”

We previously rated this Pants on Fire.

China has about 44% of the world’s wind farm capacity, ranking No. 1 globally and almost tripling what the U.S. has. China is also planning or building more wind farm capacity than any other country.

“Our (electricity) bills are coming way down. You probably see that our gasoline prices are way down.”

This is inaccurate.

Energy prices — a category that includes fuel oil, propane, kerosene, firewood, electricity and energy services — are down overall on Trump’s watch. But the two categories he specified, electricity and gasoline, are not.

Electricity costs have spiked on Trump’s watch. They are up 4.9% since Trump took office in January, and were up by 6.2% in August compared with a year earlier.

Gasoline prices are slightly higher than when Trump was inaugurated in January, and about a penny per gallon lower than a year ago.

“I unleashed massive energy production.” 

U.S. energy production has not increased dramatically on Trump’s watch. 

U.S. oil production was 407.4 million barrels in January. By June, the latest month available, the amount was nearly identical.

As for natural gas production, it fell by about 0.5% over the same period. However, the number of natural gas rigs — a common real-time metric for production — increased during that period, from 99 to 118.

The number of oil rigs in use fell between mid-January and mid-September, from 472 to 418.

London is not looking to impose Shariah

London wants “to go to Shariah law.” 

This claim is inaccurate and fueled by right-wing groups. 

There are ongoing debates about the role of Islamic Shariah councils in the United Kingdom, including in London, but those operate on a limited basis in specific community contexts. They do not represent a desire to replace UK law with Shariah.

Shariah councils in the UK predominantly deal with Islamic divorces, arbitration and mediation. Their rulings have no legal standing.

The office of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has been linked in conspiracy theories to the Shariah allegations, said it would not “dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response,” The New York Times reported.

PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Samantha Putterman, Madison Czopek and Maria Briceño contributed to this report.