On September 23, 2025, President Donald Trump took center stage at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, delivering a 56-minute address that was as fiery as it was headline-grabbing. The 80th session of the UN General Assembly was already poised for drama, but few could have anticipated the barrage of claims and criticisms that would pour forth from the U.S. president. His remarks touched on everything from immigration and climate change to personal attacks on London’s mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, and the supposed threat of Sharia law in the British capital.
Trump’s speech, as reported by Sky News, BBC, and CBS News, was marked by a series of sweeping statements that quickly dominated international headlines. He began by lashing out at Sir Sadiq Khan, declaring, “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it's been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can't do that.” The president’s assertion that London was on the verge of adopting Sharia law—a system of Islamic religious laws—was not only unsubstantiated but also recycled from long-running conspiracy theories that have circulated online for years.
According to BBC and CBS News, there is no evidence that London, under Khan’s leadership, is moving toward implementing Sharia law as part of its civil legal system. While Sharia councils do exist in the UK, their functions are limited to religious arbitration, particularly in matters of marriage and family, and their rulings are not legally binding. Only UK courts have the authority to issue legally enforceable decisions. As Justice Secretary Chris Grayling once put it, “Ultimately, the only places in our country that deliver legally binding rulings are our courts.”
Sir Sadiq Khan’s office, for its part, responded to Trump’s comments with a mixture of exasperation and pride. “We are not going to dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response,” a spokesperson told CBS News. “London is the greatest city in the world, safer than major US cities, and we're delighted to welcome the record number of US citizens moving here.” This was not the first time the two politicians had clashed. Their public feud stretches back nearly a decade, ever since Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, condemned Trump’s infamous call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” during the 2015 presidential campaign.
Trump’s attack on Khan was not limited to accusations about Sharia law. He also painted London as a city in decline, blaming the mayor for its supposed transformation and linking these changes to broader issues of immigration and crime. “Both their immigration and suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately,” Trump warned, as reported by Sky News. He characterized Europe as being “invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before,” and accused European leaders of destroying their heritage in a misguided attempt to be politically correct.
His rhetoric on immigration was particularly pointed. Trump claimed that the United States had set an example by taking “bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration. Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border and removing illegal aliens from the United States, they simply stopped coming.” He urged European countries to follow suit, declaring, “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. Your countries are going to hell.”
These statements, as BBC noted, echo familiar themes from Trump’s presidency and his ongoing campaign against what he calls the “globalist migration agenda.” Yet, the facts on the ground are more nuanced. While the UK has seen a record number of illegal migrants arrive in small boats this year, and legal migration has also spiked, the issue remains a contentious and complex political battleground. The debate over how to address migration is far from settled, with competing visions clashing across the political spectrum.
Trump’s speech did not stop at immigration. He took aim at environmental policies, lambasting Europe’s green energy initiatives and dismissing the scientific consensus on climate change. “Climate change is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” he said, according to Sky News. He argued that predictions about environmental catastrophe were the work of “stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes,” and urged European leaders to abandon their “green scam” or face national failure. Trump singled out Britain, claiming it should exploit more of its North Sea oil reserves but was being held back by excessive taxation: “It’s so highly taxed that no developer, no oil company can go there.”
He also criticized the proliferation of wind and solar farms, claiming, “I want to stop seeing them ruining that beautiful Scottish and English countryside with windmills and massive solar panels that go seven miles by seven miles, taking away farmland.” In reality, the UK’s largest solar plant, Cleve Hill in Kent, covers about 1.8 miles by 1 mile at its widest, and the largest onshore wind farm at Whitelee, near Glasgow, comprises 215 turbines spread over about 30 square miles. These figures, cited by Sky News, highlight the exaggeration in Trump’s claims.
In a moment of self-congratulation, Trump claimed he had ended “seven wars” during his presidency—an assertion that, as Sky News pointed out, is difficult to verify. “I ended seven wars and in all cases they were raging with countless thousands of people being killed,” he told world leaders. “Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements,” he added, before insisting, “What I care about is not winning prizes as much as saving lives. The real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with their mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and unglorious wars.”
Trump also took a swipe at the United Nations itself, suggesting that the organization had failed in its duties. “It was too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them,” he remarked. While some credit his administration with mediating disputes between countries such as India and Pakistan, and Cambodia and Thailand, most experts, as Sky News noted, say his impact is far less clear-cut than he claims.
Back in the UK, Trump’s statements sparked strong reactions from politicians across the spectrum. Health Secretary Wes Streeting defended Khan, stating, “Sadiq Khan is not trying to impose Sharia law on London. This is a Mayor who marches with pride, who stands up for differences of background and opinion, who’s focused on improving our transport, our air, our streets, our safety, our choices and chances.” MP Rupa Huq dismissed Trump’s remarks as “blatant bare-faced lies,” while Rosena Allin-Khan called for the US ambassador to be summoned over the comments.
Despite Trump’s repeated claims about rising crime in London, data from the Metropolitan Police and UK Office for National Statistics shows a more complex picture. While overall recorded crime in London has increased by 31.5% over the past decade, and violent crime by 40%, the city’s homicide rate in 2024 remained lower than that of several major US cities, including Washington, D.C.
As the dust settles from Trump’s UN appearance, his words continue to reverberate across the Atlantic. Whether seen as a warning, a provocation, or simply political theater, his speech has reignited debates over immigration, climate policy, and the nature of leadership in an increasingly divided world.