World leaders are gathering for the annual high-level meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York amid persistent conflicts, worsening crises and violent unrest.
This volatile year marks eight decades since the founding of the UN, and world leaders will convene under a theme of "Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights."
On this world stage, all eyes will be on the U.S., the UN's most prominent member, but who has pulled back its engagement under President Donald Trump to put America's interests first.
"Everyone will be listening to see if President Trump does offer some olive branches, if he does say that he thinks that the UN is still useful, or whether he makes it very clear that actually in the America First worldview, the UN comes last," Richard Gowan, UN Director for the International Crisis Group, told Scripps News.
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Presient Donald Trump on Tuesday will make his highly anticipated return to the UN, delivering the second speech on a long roster of presidents, monarchs and prime ministers.
At the start of his second term President Trump said the UN has "great potential," but remarked that the long-standing body needs "get their act together."
Since then, his administration has cut $1 billion from UN programs, threatened further cuts for peacekeeping missions, withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council and pulled out of the World Health Organization.
Gowan said the dominating topics of this year's high-level week will be President Trump's speech, the worsening conflict in Gaza, and the future of the UN.
"There's just a lot of concern around the UN at the moment that if the U.S. doesn't engage, if the U.S. isn't going to show leadership in the UN, then the organization is going to struggle to deal with a mounting range of problems on the world stage, whether it's wars or global problems like climate change," Gowan said.
