US President Donald Trump made multiple false or misleading claims during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, despite largely following his prepared remarks.
A fact-check of his key statements found significant exaggerations and inaccuracies concerning international conflicts, climate change, foreign investment, US munitions stockpiles and crime in Washington, DC.
Claims of settling eight wars
Trump repeated his claim that he had “settled eight wars” since taking office, saying it had been his “great honour”. He cited conflicts involving Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the war in Gaza, reports CNN.
He had previously identified last year’s brief conflict between Israel and Iran and an alleged war between Egypt and Ethiopia as the other two conflicts he had ended.
However, the claim of eight wars is a clear exaggeration. Two of the situations Trump listed did not constitute wars during his tenure. The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia centred on an Ethiopian dam project, while Serbia and Kosovo were not engaged in a war.
The conflict involving Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo has also not ended, despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration. In Gaza, Israel continues to carry out frequent attacks despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Trump did help end the brief 2025 conflict between Israel and Iran. However, Israel later joined the US in launching another war against Iran in 2026.
Misleading claims on climate change
Trump also dismissed warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence, saying they came from “the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming”. He claimed the term was later changed to climate change because “the planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead”.
The statement contained at least four major factual errors.
The terms “global warming” and “climate change” remain in use, with climate scientists using global warming to describe the long-term rise in global temperatures and climate change to refer to its broader effects. NASA explains the distinction on its website.
A 2023 UN climate change panel report, Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report, said human greenhouse gas emissions had unequivocally caused global warming, with surface temperatures reaching 1.1°C above 1850–1900 levels between 2011 and 2020.
Global temperatures have also continued to rise rather than cool. The UN World Meteorological Organisation reported in January that the previous 11 years were the warmest on record, with 2023, 2024 and 2025 being the three warmest years. NASA supported the finding, although 2025 was slightly cooler than 2024.
Experts also dispute Trump’s claim that “nobody” has died from climate change. Although an exact death toll cannot be established, estimates run into millions. The World Health Organisation estimates that climate change will cause about 250,000 additional deaths each year between 2030 and 2050 from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.
Trump also misrepresented a widely discussed 2018 report by climate scientists. The report said carbon emissions needed to be sharply reduced within 12 years to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and prevent severe deadly impacts. It did not say that everyone would die within 12 years.
Earlier this month, a UN programme reported that the world is set to exceed the 1.5°C threshold, probably within the next few years.
Unsubstantiated $21 trillion investment claim
Trump also repeated a modified version of his previous claim about investment in the US, saying, “We’ve secured commitments for $21 trillion in new investments from all over the planet”.
The figure has no apparent basis and has not been substantiated by the White House.
At the time of Trump’s UN address, the White House website cited $11.2 trillion in “major investment announcements” during his second term, considerably below the $21 trillion figure.
A detailed CNN review in 2025 found that the White House list included trillions of dollars in vague pledges related to “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than actual investment in the US. It also included statements that did not amount to investment pledges and commitments from companies based in the US.
Official federal data showed that new foreign direct investment in the US was approximately $232 billion in 2025.
Munitions claims contradicted by government reports
Defending the war with Iran, Trump rejected claims that the US was running low on munitions.
“The cowards and traitors would love to say the United States is low on munitions, but that’s not true. We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using, and we’re building them at levels that we have never done before,” he said.
Official government reports, however, contradict Trump’s claims about US munitions stockpiles.
Current classified stockpile levels are not publicly available. But reports from CNN, the federal Inspector General overseeing the Department of Defence and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the war with Iran had depleted US munitions levels.
An Inspector General report covering April through the end of June said a Department of Defence acquisitions office had warned that munitions expenditure during the war had created strategic inventory shortfalls and exposed industrial base bottlenecks affecting resupply.
The report said the Pentagon had begun mitigation measures, but expanding defence production capacity would require significant lead time. Persistent bottlenecks include the production of solid rocket motors, access to high-grade explosives and propellants, and the recruitment of skilled manufacturing workers.
A separate CBO report identified a shortage of missile defence interceptors, saying the US had probably used between half and two-thirds of its interceptor inventory since June 2025.
The CBO said rebuilding the inventory would probably take at least five years because of low production rates and difficulties in scaling up production based on historical experience.
The Department of Defence, however, has consistently denied that the US faces munitions shortages, repeating the denial last week.
Trump overstates crime decline in Washington
Trump also claimed crime in Washington, DC had fallen 87 per cent since he took office.
“When I arrived on January 20 of last year in Washington, DC, it was riddled with crime, and now crime is down 87 per cent, and we’re going for 100,” he said.
The 87 per cent figure is not supported by local crime data.
Washington police data recorded through Monday showed more than 15,000 crimes. That represented a decline of about 23 per cent from the same date in 2024 and about 15 per cent from 2025.
*The Washington Post* reported in August that White House officials could not substantiate Trump’s claims of crime reductions ranging from 81 to 92 per cent.
When asked to explain the figures, officials pointed to arson incidents falling from four in 2025 to one in 2026, along with a significant decline in the homicide rate. Neither measure matched the reductions claimed by Trump.
