At the NRA convention, President Trump announced his administration is withdrawing America’s signature from the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. A global pact designed to regulate the sale of conventional weapons, from guns to battle tanks.
USA TODAY
President Donald Trump said Friday that he would pull out of the Arms Trade Treaty, a global 2014 pact designed to regulate the sale of conventional weapons, from guns to battle tanks.
“We will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone,” Trump said in a speech to the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby. “We are taking our signature back.”
The treaty negotiations began in 2012 under the purview of the United Nations. President Barack Obama signed it in 2013.
Trump teased his announcement for a couple of minutes, playing to his audience. “With me, you never know,” Trump said, a reference to his penchant for going off-script.
“I hope you’re happy,” he said after the announcement. The president then signed a document from the podium, asking the U.S. Senate to immediately stop the ratification process and send the agreement back to him so he could rescind U.S. participation.
The Senate never ratified the treaty, and the GOP-led chamber was not currently considering. The U.S. was the 91st country to sign the ATT, in September 2013, and it took effect the following year.
Critics accused Trump of pandering the gun lobby with the move, while supporters said it would free the U.S. from unnecessary constraints on its domestic arms industry.
The treaty was aimed at creating common standards for the global trade of conventional weapons and reducing the same of illicit arms.
The main element of the treaty requires countries to adopt basic regulations governing “the flow of weapons across international borders” and creates “common international standards” that have to followed before arms exports are approved, according to the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan advocacy group that promotes effective arms control. The treaty also mandates annual reports on each country’s arms imports and exports.
The ATT does not include any restrictions on the type or quantity of arms that can be bought or sold in individual countries or in any way impact domestic gun control laws, according to the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group focused on effective arms control policies.
Arms control experts blasted the move as deeply harmful, as did advocacy groups that help victims of war and conflict.
“President Trump is sending a clear message to civilians caught in the crossfire: we don’t care,” said Abby Maxman, the president of Oxfam America, an international anti-poverty group. She said an estimated 500,000 people are killed annually as a result of the unregulated and under-regulated arms trade.
“The United States will now lock arms with Iran, North Korea and Syria as non-signatories to this historic treaty whose sole purpose is to protect innocent people from deadly weapons,” Maxman said.
“THIS IS INSANE,” tweeted Alexandra Bell, a former State Department arms control expert. “The whole point of the Arms Trade Treaty is to get the rest of the world to follow American principles on how and when to sell arms. We are pulling out of a treaty that is based on American values.”
The United Nations’ press office released a statement Friday saying the treaty is “the only global instrument aimed at improving transparency and accountability in the international arms trade.” Trump’s decision comes amid “growing international tensions and renewed interest in expanding and modernizing arsenals,” the U.N. statement said.
The NRA’s top lobbyist lauded Trump’s move and said it gives NRA members “one more reason to enthusiastically support” the president.
“His commitment to un-sign the anti-gun United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that was forced on us by John Kerry and Barrack Obama,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “Donald Trump isn’t afraid to stand on the side of freedom and defend our God-given right to self-defense.”
Ted Bromund, a critic of the accord with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Trump is right to withdraw. In a 2018 analysis, he blasted the treaty as a “substantive failure” and said it has achieved “nothing” except to constrain U.S. policy.
“If a nation wants a control system for its arms exports, it can impose one: No treaty is necessary,” Bromund said in a statement Friday ahead of Trump’s anticipated announcement.
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