OPINION:
Elections have consequences.
For the last four years, Americans did not have to worry about the sovereignty of their nation.
The Trump administration scrupulously protected American independence and our country’s territorial integrity.
In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Donald Trump made crystal clear that he would uphold American sovereignty at all costs:
“In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign. … In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding principle of sovereignty. … As president of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries will always, and should always, put your countries first.”
Mr. Trump made good on his words. He got the U.S. out of the wrongheaded Paris Agreement on climate change, leveled sanctions on the mandarins who run the International Criminal Court for targeting American citizens, withdrew from the morally-bankrupt U.N. Human Rights Council, and protected the U.S.-Mexico border from being overrun by illegal immigrants and drug traffickers.
That was then.
What President Biden has done so far, and what it will do over the next four years, is the exact opposite.
Paris Agreement: On his first day in the Oval Office, Mr. Biden proudly re-joined the Paris Agreement. Ironically, two weeks later, an administrative tribunal in Paris ruled that France itself had failed to meet its own commitments under the deal. This follows a long history of other countries making grand pledges to meet environmental goals and then utterly failing to reach them. (See also the Kyoto Protocol.) This stands in stark contrast to the U.S. record under Mr. Trump, which led the world in carbon reduction, thanks largely to the fracking revolution.
International Criminal Court: The U.S. is not a party to the ICC, but that did not stop the tribunal from opening an investigation into U.S. servicemen and intelligence officials over detainee-abuse claims during the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Trump rightly leveled travel and financial sanctions against ICC officials. Will Mr. Biden protect American citizens and uphold American sovereignty? At last check, the Biden team is “thoroughly reviewing” the sanctions. Fingers crossed!
Human Rights Council: Who would want to join a “human rights” council that boasts such members as China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela? Mr. Biden, apparently. The Geneva-based U.N. council spends the majority of its time condemning Israel while ignoring major human-rights violations from other countries, including many of its own members.
Nevertheless, on Feb. 8 Mr. Biden announced that the U.S. would re-join the discredited body from which Mr. Trump properly withdrew in June 2018.
The U.S.-Mexico border: It’s axiomatic that a country that cannot or does not control its borders is not a country. A nation’s borders define the territory over which it claims sovereignty. Mr. Trump erected hundreds of miles of border wall and made immigration enforcement a priority. Mr. Biden clearly does not place the same value on the protection of U.S. territory and American citizens. He halted construction of the border wall on his first day in office and has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to decrease arrests and deportation of illegal immigrants, including those convicted of crimes. Odd behavior for an American president, but there you have it.
On Jan. 20, we went from a president who prioritized American sovereignty to one who pledged fealty to a feckless and failing climate change pact and opened our borders to unfettered incursions, coyotes, and drug cartels. He then joined a rogues’ gallery of genocidal regimes, communists, and Islamists on the Human Rights Council.
Those actions will permit Mr. Biden to make a well-received speech to the U.N. General Assembly this fall — but at what cost to the American people and their sovereignty?
⦁ Steven Groves is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
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