Speaking to reporters in New York on Wednesday during the high-level week of the United Nations General Assembly, Rubio said several leaders had voiced similar concerns about the effectiveness of international institutions. He argued that the system had expanded beyond its intended mandate while proving unable to settle some of the world’s most serious crises.
Rubio said the United States still saw value in international institutions and pointed to President Donald Trump’s view that the United Nations had “tremendous potential” but was not living up to it. He said the problem, as Washington saw it, was not the idea of international cooperation itself but the inability of existing structures to deliver results on conflicts.
“It would be great if we had a functional international system,” Rubio said, listing the Thailand-Cambodia war, the possibility of conflict between India and Pakistan, fighting involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, the war in Sudan and tensions involving Iran and strategic waterways.
“Right now, we don’t seem to have a functional international system that can address it,” he said. Rubio added that, when such mechanisms fail, sovereign states will act according to their own national interests.
The remarks amounted to a broad critique of the multilateral order at a UN gathering dominated by wars, security disputes and arguments over the ability of international institutions to enforce rules or mediate settlements. Rubio said there was “unanimity and consensus” among leaders he had heard that the international system was broken, while maintaining that the breakdown had resulted from the system straying from its proper role.
His India-Pakistan reference came a day after Trump again spoke at the General Assembly about the 2025 military confrontation between the two countries and repeated his claim that his administration had helped stop the fighting. India has consistently said the understanding to halt military action was reached directly between the two countries through contacts between their Directors General of Military Operations and has rejected claims of third-party mediation.
Rubio did not announce any new US initiative involving India and Pakistan. His reference was framed as one example in a wider argument that the international architecture should be capable of dealing with potential interstate conflicts before governments conclude that national action is their only practical option.
The Secretary of State also made clear that Washington would not subordinate what it regards as US national interests to international institutions. “We will always act in the national interest of our country, not in the interest of the international order,” he said, adding that the United States would never place the international order above its own interests while Trump remained president.
That position sits alongside continued US participation in the UN system and diplomacy conducted through multilateral forums. Rubio attended meetings during General Assembly week and held discussions on conflicts that have resisted international mediation, including Sudan, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the confrontation with Iran.
On Sudan, Rubio expressed frustration that attempts to secure a humanitarian ceasefire had repeatedly stalled as the warring sides reassessed battlefield conditions. He said that whenever progress appeared possible, one side or the other pulled back because it believed it was winning or could still win.
Rubio also said Russia and Ukraine had both expressed interest in a limited ceasefire covering grain and energy-related targets, though he cautioned that reaching such an arrangement would not be easy. Ukraine has sought protection for energy infrastructure as it prepares for winter, while maritime and agricultural routes remain central to wider negotiations.
The comments followed UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s final General Assembly address, in which he argued that major powers could not solve global problems alone and called for stronger adherence to international law and reform of multilateral institutions. Guterres also highlighted geopolitical divisions and weaknesses in existing global governance structures.
