What to Know About the Visa Standoff Between Trump and the United Nations

When the United Nations General Assembly gathers in New York City next week, the war in Gaza and the issue of Palestinian statehood will dominate much of the debate. But notably absent will be the Palestinian leaders themselves.

The Trump administration has denied visas to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and his delegation. Because the United Nations headquarters is in New York City, the United States is the country that issues visas to the leaders and diplomats who travel to the event.

The State Department said that the decision to deny Mr. Abbas a visa was made on grounds of national security.

France, Britain, Canada and Australia are expected to announce their formal recognition of the state of Palestine on Sept. 22, at a conference with more 100 other countries about a two-state solution, a day before the General Assembly officially begins. The United States opposed the conference and says Palestinian statehood must be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.

What’s in the agreement between the U.S. and U.N.?

In 1947, the United States and the United Nations signed a 16-page agreement called the Headquarters Agreement, which was approved by the U.S. president and Congress in a joint resolution and became federal law.

Section 11 of the agreement says that “the federal, state or local authorities of the United States shall not impose any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district.” The people eligible for access include representatives of member states and any person invited to headquarters by the U.N. or one of its agencies for official business.

The agreement also states that the visa provisions shall be “applicable irrespective of the relations existing between the Governments of the persons referred to in that section and the Government of the United States.”

Disputes between the United Nations and the United States over host-country issues are addressed by a 19-member committee of member states. An unresolved issue can be escalated to arbitration.

Can the U.S. refuse entry to leaders and U.N. diplomats?

This has been a longstanding point of dispute.

When U.S. lawmakers approved the Headquarters Agreement, they also passed separate legislation saying the agreement cannot prevent the U.S. from safeguarding its national security interests. This states:

“Nothing in the agreement shall be construed as in any way diminishing, abridging, or weakening the right of the United States to safeguard its own security and completely to control the entrance of aliens into any territory of the United States other than the headquarters district and its immediate vicinity.”

The U.N. and legal experts say the United States is violating the agreement, and that it is legally obliged to provide visas and unimpeded access to the U.N. They argue there is no loophole in the host-country agreement and the language is clear.

“There is an underlying dispute between the U.N. and U.S. that it has been there since 1947,” said Larry Johnson, who served in the past as the assistant secretary general for legal affairs at the U.N.

Has the U.S. barred entry to diplomats in the past?

The only time the United States denied entry for the head of a government attending the General Assembly was in 1988, when it blocked a visa for the Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat. Mr. Arafat did attend U.N. gatherings in subsequent years.

Robert A. Wood, who was a deputy ambassador to the U.N. under the Biden administration, said visa restrictions and delays surface occasionally for delegations from countries such as Russia, Iran, China, and Venezuela because of intelligence or security concerns. But an outright rejection or threat to deny access to a head of government is extremely rare.

“This is a very controversial issue, and whenever we have had this issue brought up about denying visas it’s always the question of whether we have the legal right to do it,” Mr. Wood said.

Russian and Venezuelan diplomats complain that the United States drags out the visa process for so long that by the time visas are issued, the requested event has already taken place, effectively denying them access. The delegates from Brazil, a nation that has defied U.S. pressure over the criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro, this year were left waiting for some of their visas until just days before the General Assembly.

In 2014, the U.S. denied a visa to Iran’s nominee for ambassador because he had participated in taking American diplomats hostage in 1979.

Iran’s diplomats face movement restrictions confining them to a 25-mile radius of the U.N. building. Sometimes the limitations are even tighter. In 2019, Iran’s then foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was not allowed to travel some 20 blocks north of the U.N. to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to visit his ambassador, who was receiving treatment.