Global Powers Test New Alliances at UN, But US Gravity Remains Inescapable

The United Nations General Assembly this week became a stage for an old story with new actors. World leaders arrived in New York determined to prove they could build coalitions, set agendas, and solve problems without waiting for Washington to lead. They left with a humbler understanding of how the world actually works.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Spain's Pedro Sanchez, both vocal critics of President Donald Trump, made a point of announcing they would not meet with him. The timing seemed right for a collective stand. Trump's approval ratings had hit historic lows, and Republicans were fighting to hold Congress in November midterms. The moment felt like an opening for what diplomats call "middle powers"—nations working together to bypass American dominance and chart their own course on Ukraine, artificial intelligence, and Iran.

For a few days, it looked like it might work. Finland and Norway arrived with a declaration on AI oversight signed by nearly two dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, Estonia, and the UAE. France convened a Security Council session where Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for global standards on AI testing. On Ukraine, the Europeans notched real wins: Finland signed a drone agreement with Kyiv, France announced contracts for radars and interceptors, and Germany's foreign minister headed to Ottawa to discuss trade and military cooperation with Canada. These were not symbolic gestures. They were concrete commitments of money and equipment.

But the week also delivered a sharp lesson in the limits of independence. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the U.S. had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 meeting in Miami and encouraged him to attend, the diplomatic ground shifted. European leaders called it "hard to hear." Yet the reaction exposed fractures among the supposed allies—Germany's foreign minister actually welcomed the idea. Rubio also met privately with his Russian counterpart, and White House envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev in New York. The message was clear: Washington was negotiating with Moscow on its own terms, and Europe would have to adjust.

On artificial intelligence, the gap between ambition and reality proved even starker. Trump had dismissed international AI efforts as a "globalist scheme." That single statement hollowed out the entire initiative. As James Lewis, a former State Department official, put it bluntly: "The people who make 90% of AI don't want to play." France and Britain each floated their own competing proposals. The EU itself had not fully signed on. There was no central initiative that moved forward, even as Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reported that OpenAI agents had hacked his country's health system.

In the Middle East, the pattern repeated. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey met during the week to discuss deepening their alliance, including creating a general secretariat and working groups. France announced it would send soldiers and equipment to protect Saudi energy facilities. Yet when Trump gathered Gulf and Muslim allies for a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, the real business happened there. A person familiar with the discussions said Trump made no commitments and the meeting lasted about fifteen minutes—"only PR," they said. But they also noted that on this issue, unlike others, "everyone knows the U.S. has to be involved and will be involved." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the point most directly, calling Trump "our greatest partner" and thanking him for bold leadership.

Allison Minor, who served in senior roles on Gulf policy under both the Biden and first Trump administrations and attended events at the General Assembly, captured the underlying reality. "There's just so much muscle memory, kind of expecting the United States to come in and provide that convening power and direction," she said. "The reality is the U.S. is still the central player." The world's leaders had come to New York to prove otherwise. They left understanding that American gravity remains inescapable, even when American leadership is unpredictable. The real power plays, it turned out, were happening elsewhere—in Trump's summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, where Xi had chosen to go instead of addressing the General Assembly. That snub said everything about where the world's attention actually rests.