From Stone Age Warnings to Jet Age Salesmanship

Gustavo Petro pleaded for peace; Donald Trump turned the UN into an arms bazaar.

While the world tuned in to the United Nations General Assembly this week, the split-screen was almost too on the nose. On one side, Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned that “a kind of stone age has descended on all of humankind,” with missiles raining on unarmed youth in the Caribbean, Gaza in ruins, Ukraine locked in attrition, and humanity sliding backward under the weight of violence. Petro reminded the room that he had pleaded for a peace conference four years ago, only to be ignored by the powers with “bombs or large budgets.” Now, he said, “the horrific situation in Palestine did not lead me to think that almost the same thing could happen in the Colombian Caribbean,” where unarmed young people were killed at sea.

Petro did not spare the United States. “Those who don’t have bombs or large budgets are not heeded here,” he said pointedly, indicting the very structure of global politics that elevates American arms deals over human lives. His speech brimmed with urgency, warning that famine stalks Gaza, peace is treated as a nuisance, and the superpowers prefer the profits of war to the labor of diplomacy. “Missiles against 17 unarmed young people in the Caribbean Sea,” Petro said, summing up a world order that can casually discard the lives of the powerless.

And then there was Donald Trump, flexing for Erdoğan like a salesman on commission.

“He’s a highly respected man. He’s respected very much in his country and all throughout Europe and throughout the world where they know him,” Trump gushed, before adding with a grin, “Usually I don’t like opinionated people, but I always like this one. But he’s a tough one.”

Trump rattled off the shopping list: “They want to buy F-16s, F-35s, and some other things. And we’re going to talk to them about that and… we’re going to get a lot done.” NATO, in his telling, was a booming marketplace: “They went from 2% to 5% GDP. And that’s a big step. They’re buying highly sophisticated weaponry, and they’re paying for it full price. Biden gave $350 billion. Look, this war would have never started if I were president.”

Even the humanitarian crises bent into a sales pitch. On Gaza, he mused: “We want to get Gaza over with… it could be today. We had a really great meeting with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan. I think we’re close to getting some kind of a deal done.” The hostages were grimly quantified, “20 living hostages and probably 38 or so dead hostages. Pretty sad.”, but still framed as part of Trump’s grand negotiation, another transaction to be bundled alongside jets and tariffs.

And when pressed on Russia, Trump’s performative bluster reached peak absurdity: “They’ve lost like a million soldiers… with all of the heavy bombardment over the last two weeks they’ve gained almost no land. Think of that. They’ve gained almost no land.” No evidence, just the salesman’s flourish.

What made the scene all the more surreal was Erdoğan’s interpreter leaning in close, murmuring translations while Trump ranted like he was auditioning for an infomercial: praising Turkey’s “beautiful, great products,” insisting he alone could fix Gaza, boasting about NATO’s fantasy billions. It was performance through and through, a man selling himself as indispensable by sheer volume of superlatives, the substance as thin as air.

This is Trump in his element: the salesman’s grin, the tall tale about “millions of Russians dead” and “7,818 people killed last week” delivered with the authority of a man who seems to think casualty figures are interchangeable with Nielsen ratings. And when the questions got a little too close to uncomfortable, he reached for his favorite new crutch, branding opponents “sick.” James Comey? Sick guy. Democrats? Sick people. Anyone not applauding his tariff fairy tales? Sick. It’s almost Freudian: the man who once called Jeffrey Epstein a “terrific guy” now spends his days projecting that label onto everyone else. He calls them “sick”, which is quite ironic, given his friendship history with arguably the least healthy member of Manhattan’s and Palm Beach’s social scene.

With a government shutdown looming, here is Trump, insisting Democrats are impossible to negotiate with, “there is no dealing with them”, even as he postures as the great peacemaker who alone can settle Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, and Syria before lunch is cleared. Petro begged for an end to missiles; Trump peddled F-16s like a hawker at a trade show. Petro described humanity’s collective peril; Trump described Erdoğan as a “tough man” who makes “beautiful products.” One leader tried to address civilization’s collapse. The other tried to close a deal.