President Trump announced that he was removing the U.S. from an Obama-era international treaty that regulates conventional arms.
Trump, speaking at to the National Rifle Association conference in Indianapolis on Friday, said he was revoking the U.S. signature from the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty and said his administration will never ratify it. He proceeded to sign a letter in front of the audience instructing the Senate to cease the ratification process.
“Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone,” said Trump.
The Obama administration signed the Arms Trade Treaty on Sept. 25, 2013, and sent it to the Senate for ratification in December 2016. The treaty regulates the sale of conventional weapons, ranging from small arms to warships, in an effort to ensure they are not used for illicit purposes. The treaty requires signatories to adopt a common system of regulations and approval processes regulating these sales. Instead of a central governing authority, the treaty relies on each signatory to “establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of ammunition/munitions fired, launched or delivered by” listed conventional arms.
“The United States already has significant controls in place to regulate conventional arms transfers, other countries do not,” said a senior Trump administration official. “So other countries that do not have the same kind of responsible rules in place that we do are ungoverned by the treaty, but we would be governed by the treaty.”
The controls to which the official was referring are likely the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Arms Export Control Act, which regulate and restrict the U.S. export of weapons and defense technology. Violators of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations can be subject to civil penalties of $500,000 per violation, up to $1 million in criminal penalties per violation, and 20 years in prison.
There are currently 101 parties to the Arms Trade Treaty and 134 signatory states. Supporters of the treaty said Trump’s decision puts the U.S. in the same company as several nefarious international actors.
“In rejecting the Arms Trade Treaty, Donald Trump joins the ranks of the leaders of the only three states — Iran, Syria, and North Korea — who voted to oppose the adoption of this common-sense treaty,” said Thomas Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state and lead U.S. negotiator on the treaty.
That said, several major arms exporters and U.S. adversaries are not signatories to the treaty, including Russia and China. In fact, 17 of the world’s top 25 weapons exporters are not signatories, according to the official.
Critics of the treaty also expressed concerns regarding an upcoming Arms Trade Treaty amendment process slated for 2020.
“There are significant concerns about proposals that are out there in discussion in the NGO (nongovernmental organization) and other communities for how to use that amendment period to further constrain what countries like the U.S. might do,” said the official, noting such proposals threaten to “undermine our sovereignty.”
Ted Bromund, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the basic goal of the treaty was laudable, but its vague legal foundations based on the interpretation of international law pose a significant problem. As an example, he pointed to a lawsuit in the United Kingdom challenging the country’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia. He noted similar legal cases have not been brought up against Russia’s supplying of weapons to rebels in eastern Ukraine, or Iran’s support of the Syrian government.
“It is a policy debate, it should not be a legal question,” said Bromund. “The ATT makes as much as sense as a law banning crime.”
He added that an official within the Obama administration stated in 2010 that “not getting a universal agreement would make any agreement less than useless.” The treaty’s supporters said removing the U.S. from the treaty inherently makes the country less safe and diminishes U.S. standing in the international forum.
“By turning its back on multilateral diplomacy yet again, the United States is disregarding global norms and allowing nefarious actors to trade weapons with impunity,” said Rachel Stohl, managing director of the Stimson Center and a former consultant to U.N. Arms Trade Treaty negotiations. “Walking away from a treaty that includes nearly all of the United States’ closest allies and partners, the United States is instead choosing to be in the company of governments that routinely flout responsible transfer controls.”
The Trump administration plans to send a notice to the U.N. stating its intention to pull the U.S. out of the agreement.
