Fact check: Trump’s false claims to the United Nations

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President Donald Trump made multiple false claims in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, though he largely stuck to a prepared text.

Here is a fact check of some of his assertions.

Trump, repeating a frequent false claim, said, “Since I took office, it has been my great honor to settle eight wars.”

He specified that he was talking about conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand; Kosovo and Serbia; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo; India and Pakistan; Armenia and Azerbaijan; and the war in Gaza. And he has previously claimed that the other two wars he ended were last year’s brief conflict between Israel and Iran and a supposed war between Egypt and Ethiopia.

Trump’s “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration.

His list includes two situations that were never actually wars during his tenure. The situation between Egypt and Ethiopia was a diplomatic dispute over an Ethiopian dam project, not a war, and the mysterious supposed issue he says he resolved between Serbia and Kosovo was also not a war.

In addition, the war involving Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo has not ended despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration. And though Trump cited the war in Gaza, Israel continues to conduct frequent attacks in the enclave despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement.

Trump did help to end the brief 2025 conflict between Israel and Iran, though Israel proceeded to join the US in starting another war against Iran in 2026.

Trump scoffed at dire warnings that artificial intelligence might eventually attack or kill people, claiming they are coming from “the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming, a name since reborn to climate change because the planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead.”

There are at least four things wrong with his sentence about global warming.

First, the phrase “global warming” remains in widespread use even though the phrase “climate change” is also common; they mean different things. Climate scientists use both, often saying “global warming” when referring to the long-term trend of increasing global temperature and “climate change” when referring to the numerous effects the world is experiencing because of that trend. (NASA, part of the Trump-led federal government, explains the difference between the terms on its website.) For example, a 2023 report from the UN’s climate change panel is titled “Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report,” but it says this: “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020.”

Second, while Trump didn’t say what time period he was talking about, he didn’t acknowledge that the world has continued to get warmer, not cooler. The UN’s World Meteorological Organization reported in January that “the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record,” with 2023, 2024 and 2025 the three very warmest — as NASA also found — though 2025 wasn’t as hot as 2024.

Third, experts widely disagree that “nobody” has died from the various impacts of a warming world. It’s impossible to pinpoint a precise death number, but some estimates total in the millions. The deaths are likely to continue; the World Health Organization says , “Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone.”

Fourth, while somebody somewhere might have said that “we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming,” that isn’t how an expert report framed the issue.

A widely discussed 2018 report from climate scientists said the world needed to sharply cut carbon emissions within the next 12 years to be on track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; scientists said above that threshold, the potential deadly impacts from climate change would be larger . Though the 2018 report was often oversimplified by politicians, the expert claim was never that “we’ll all be dead in 12 years” — it was that significant action was needed within 12 years to improve the future. (The UN program reported earlier this month that the world is set to exceed the 1.5-degree increase, “likely within the next few years.”)

Trump delivered a more cautious version of his inaccurate previous boast that $21 trillion in investment is pouring into the US, this time saying, “We’ve secured commitments for $21 trillion in new investments from all over the planet.” His figure has no apparent basis even with the “secured commitments for” caveat; the White House has never been able to substantiate it.

When the president spoke at the UN, the White House’s own website claimed there had been “$11.2 trillion” in “major investment announcements” during Trump’s second term, far less than the “$21 trillion” in commitments the president cited. And a detailed CNN review in 2025 found the White House list was counting trillions in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US, and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.

The White House figure includes pledges from US-based companies as well as foreign entities. Federal data shows that new foreign direct investment in the US was about $232 billion in 2025.

Trump defended the Iran war at length. And he claimed, “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.”

We don’t have access to classified information on the precise current state of US munitions stockpiles, and it’s not clear who Trump is calling “cowards and traitors.” But it’s not just CNN and other media outlets that have reported that the war with Iran has depleted at least some US munitions levels; the federal inspector general overseeing the Defense Department and the nonpartisan federal Congressional Budget Office essentially said the same in separate reports released last week.

The inspector general report, which discussed the period from the beginning of April through the end of June, said a Defense Department acquisitions office “said that the munitions expenditure in (the war) has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.”

The report said the acquisitions office also noted that while the Pentagon “has begun to implement mitigation strategies, the defense industrial base requires ‘significant lead time’ to expand production capacities.” The report specified: “The most persistent bottlenecks remain in the production of solid rocket motors, the availability of high-grade explosives and propellants, and the recruitment of skilled manufacturing labor.”

The Congressional Budget Office report said there is a “shortfall” of missile defense interceptors and that the war will leave “the United States with a reduced inventory of interceptors for several years.” The report said the Defense Department had a “limited” inventory of interceptors even before Israel and the US attacked Iran during a brief conflict in June 2025, and that the budget office’s research indicates the US “has probably used between one-half and two-thirds of its inventory of those munitions since June 2025.”

“Given the number of missile defense interceptors that DoD has recently used, their currently low production rates, and the historical difficulty of scaling up their production, rebuilding DoD’s inventory of interceptors would probably take at least five years — even if production was increased,” the report said.

The Defense Department has consistently said it’s not true that there are any munitions shortfalls, and it did so again last week.

Trump again overstated the decline in crime that various US cities have experienced during his second term. He said most important was that “when I arrived on January 20 of last year in Washington, DC, it was riddled with crime, and now crime is down 87%, and we’re going for 100.”

That “87%” figure isn’t close to accurate.

While overall crime in Washington is indeed down this year, as is crime in much of the country, the local police department had still recorded and publicly reported more than 15,000 total crimes through Monday — a reduction of about 23% from 2024 as of the same date, not the 80-plus percent Trump has repeatedly claimed. (It was a reduction of about 15% compared with 2025 as of the same date.)

The Washington Post reported in August on the White House’s inability to substantiate his claims that crime in the capital had dropped by 81%, 88% or 92%. The Post wrote: “When asked to clarify Trump’s remarks about D.C. crime drops, White House officials pointed to arson incidents, which dropped from four in 2025 to one in 2026. The White House also cited the District’s homicide rate, which has fallen significantly in recent years, but not by the rates cited by Trump.”

If Trump wanted to refer to reductions in specific crime categories, he could do so explicitly.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

唐纳德·特朗普总统周二在联合国大会上发表讲话时，虽然他基本上是按照事先准备好的讲稿讲话，但他还是发表了多项虚假声明。

以下是对他的一些说法进行事实核查。

特朗普重复了他经常发表的虚假言论：“自从我上任以来，我非常荣幸地结束了八场战争。”

他明确指出，他所指的冲突包括柬埔寨与泰国、科索沃与塞尔维亚、卢旺达与刚果民主共和国、印度与巴基斯坦、亚美尼亚与阿塞拜疆之间的冲突，以及加沙战争。此前，他还声称，他结束的另外两场战争分别是去年以色列与伊朗之间的短暂冲突，以及所谓的埃及与埃塞俄比亚之间的战争。

特朗普所说的“八”这个数字显然是夸大其词。

他列举的事件中包括两起在他任职期间实际上从未爆发的战争。埃及和埃塞俄比亚之间的冲突是围绕埃塞俄比亚水坝项目的外交争端，而非战争；而他声称自己解决的塞尔维亚和科索沃之间的神秘问题，也并非战争。

此外，尽管特朗普政府斡旋达成了和平协议，卢旺达和刚果民主共和国之间的战争仍未结束。而且，尽管特朗普提到了加沙战争，但以色列仍在加沙地带频繁发动袭击，尽管美国斡旋达成了停火协议。

特朗普确实帮助结束了以色列和伊朗之间短暂的 2025 年冲突，但以色列随后又与美国一起在 2026 年对伊朗发动了另一场战争。

特朗普对人工智能最终可能会攻击或杀死人类的可怕警告嗤之以鼻，声称这些警告来自“那些曾说我们会在 12 年内因为全球变暖而全部死亡的人，而全球变暖这个名称后来又改成了气候变化，因为地球当时是在降温而不是变暖，而且也没有人死亡。”

他关于全球变暖的句子至少有四个错误之处。

首先，尽管“气候变化”一词也很常用，“全球变暖”一词仍然被广泛使用；它们的含义并不相同。气候科学家经常使用这两个词，通常用“全球变暖”来指代全球气温长期上升的趋势，而用“气候变化”来指代世界因这一趋势而遭受的诸多影响。（美国国家航空航天局（NASA），作为特朗普领导的联邦政府的一部分，在其网站上解释了这两个术语之间的区别。）例如，联合国气候变化专门委员会2023年的一份报告题为《2023年气候变化：综合报告》，其中指出：“人类活动，主要是通过温室气体排放，已明确导致全球变暖，2011年至2020年间，全球地表温度比1850年至1900年高出1.1摄氏度。”

其次，虽然特朗普没有具体说明他指的是哪个时期，但他没有承认全球气温一直在持续升高，而不是降低。联合国世界气象组织在1月份报告称，“过去11年是有记录以来最温暖的11年”，其中​​2023年、2024年和2025年是气温最高的三年——美国宇航局也发现了这一点——尽管2025年的温度不如2024年。

第三，专家们普遍不认同“没有人”因全球变暖的各种影响而死亡的说法。虽然无法确定确切的死亡人数，但一些估计数字高达数百万。死亡人数可能还会继续上升；世界卫生组织表示，“预计在2030年至2050年间，仅营养不良、疟疾、腹泻和热应激这一项，气候变化每年就将导致约25万人额外死亡。”

第四，虽然有人可能会说“由于全球变暖，我们都会在 12 年内死去”，但专家报告并不是这样看待这个问题的。

2018年一份广受关注的气候科学家报告指出，世界需要在未来12年内大幅削减碳排放，才能将全球升温幅度控制在比工业化前水平高1.5摄氏度以内；科学家表示，一旦超过这一阈值，气候变化可能带来的致命影响将更加严重。尽管这份2018年的报告经常被政客们过度解读，但专家们从未声称“12年后我们都会死去”，而是强调需要在12年内采取重大行动来改善未来。（联合国本月早些时候发布的报告称，全球升温幅度很可能超过1.5摄氏度，“很可能在未来几年内就会发生”。）

特朗普再次发表了更为谨慎的言论，重申了他之前关于21万亿美元投资正涌入美国的错误说法。这次他表示：“我们已经获得了来自全球各地21万亿美元的新投资承诺。” 即使加上“已获得承诺”这一限定词，他的数字也明显缺乏依据；白宫始终未能证实这一说法。

总统在联合国发表讲话时，白宫官网声称，特朗普第二任期内“重大投资公告”总额为11.2万亿美元，远低于总统所提及的21万亿美元承诺。而CNN在2025年的一项详细调查发现，白宫的清单中包含了数万亿美元的模糊投资承诺，这些承诺涉及“双边贸易”或“经济交流”，而非对美国的直接投资，甚至还有一些含糊不清的声明，根本算不上承诺。

白宫公布的数据包括美国本土公司和外国实体的投资承诺。联邦数据显示，2025年美国新增外国直接投资约为2320亿美元。

特朗普为伊朗战争进行了长时间的辩护。他声称：“那些懦夫和叛徒很想说美国军火短缺，但这并非事实。我们的军火数量远远超过我们所能想象的使用量，而且我们正在以前所未有的速度生产军火。”

我们无法获取有关美国当前军火库存确切状况的机密信息，也不清楚特朗普口中的“懦夫和叛徒”究竟指的是谁。但并非只有CNN和其他媒体报道了与伊朗的战争至少消耗了美国的部分军火储备；负责监督国防部的联邦监察长和无党派的联邦国会预算办公室在上周发布的独立报告中也基本表达了同样的观点。

监察长报告讨论了从 4 月初到 6 月底这段时间的情况，报告称国防部采购办公室“表示，（战争中的）弹药支出导致战略库存短缺，并暴露出弹药补给的工业基础瓶颈”。

报告指出，采购办公室还注意到，虽然五角大楼“已经开始实施缓解策略，但国防工业基础需要‘相当长的准备时间’来扩大产能”。报告具体指出：“目前最棘手的瓶颈仍然是固体火箭发动机的生产、高等级炸药和推进剂的供应以及熟练制造业劳动力的招聘。”

国会预算办公室的报告指出，导弹防御拦截器存在“短缺”，战争将导致“美国在未来几年内拦截器库存减少”。报告称，即使在2025年6月以色列和美国短暂冲突期间攻击伊朗之前，国防部的拦截器库存也“有限”。预算办公室的研究表明，自2025年6月以来，美国“可能已经使用了其此类弹药库存的一半到三分之二”。

报告称：“鉴于美国国防部最近使用的导弹防御拦截器的数量、目前较低的生产率以及历史上扩大生产规模的困难，即使提高产量，重建美国国防部的拦截器库存也可能至少需要五年时间。”

国防部一直表示不存在任何弹药短缺的情况，上周再次重申了这一说法。

特朗普再次夸大了美国多个城市在他第二个任期内犯罪率的下降幅度。他声称最重要的是，“去年1月20日我抵达华盛顿特区时，那里犯罪猖獗，而现在犯罪率下降了87%，我们的目标是100%。”

“87%”这个数字远不准确。

虽然今年华盛顿特区的整体犯罪率确实有所下降，与全国大部分地区一样，但截至周一，当地警察局仍记录并公开报告了超过15000起犯罪案件——与2024年同期相比下降了约23%，而不是特朗普反复声称的80%以上。（与2025年同期相比，下降了约15%。）

《华盛顿邮报》8月份报道称，白宫无法证实特朗普关于首都犯罪率下降81%、88%或92%的说法。《华盛顿邮报》写道：“当被要求澄清特朗普关于华盛顿特区犯罪率下降的言论时，白宫官员指出纵火事件的数量从2025年的4起下降到2026年的1起。白宫还提到了特区的凶杀率，近年来凶杀率显著下降，但并未达到特朗普所说的降幅。”

如果特朗普想提及特定犯罪类别的减少，他完全可以明确地这样做。