At the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Trump delivered a speech that placed the tension between national sovereignty and international order into sharp relief, issuing direct military threats against Iran while rejecting the multilateral architecture that has governed global affairs since 1945. The address was less a diplomatic overture than a declaration of intent — that American power would henceforth be exercised on its own terms, unmediated by the institutions built to constrain it. In doing so, Trump posed an old question anew: whether the rules-based international