Trump's Deceptive Arms Trade Treaty Argument

In announcing that he will withdraw the United States from the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that under the international agreement, the U.S. would “surrender American sovereignty” and allow “foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom.” As a matter of fact, the treaty’s preamble clearly states that it reaffirms “the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional system.” And the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said the treaty “does not affect sales or trade in weapons among private citizens within a country.”[1] Rachel Stohl, an international arms trade expert who was a consultant during the Arms Trade Treaty process, said Trump was reinforcing “a false narrative.”[2] Trump made his announcement during the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting on April 26. His decision was applauded by the NRA’s lobbying arm, which also said the treaty was a “threat to our national sovereignty and Second Amendment.”[3][4] Trump, April 26: So, in the last administration, President Obama signed the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. And in his waning days in office, he sent the treaty to the Senate to begin the ratification process. This treaty threatened your subjugate — and you know exactly what’s going on here — your rights and your constitutional and international rules and restrictions and regulations. Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom. And that is why my administration will never ratify the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. The president repeated[5] a similar claim the next day at a rally in Wisconsin. Trump, April 27: Just yesterday, I announced that my administration is unsigning the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. We’re unsigning it, we’re pulling it back out of

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