Trump ditches partnerships

PATTERN OF DISENGAGEMENT HAS EMERGED Administration announced it was withdrawing from UN pact on migration.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the US has abandoned or threatened to quit several international accords under his “America First” policy.

Trump’s advisors insist the slogan does not imply any new isolationist stance, but a pattern of disengagement from multilateral commitments has emerged.

On Saturday, the Trump administration announced it was withdrawing the US from a United Nations pact to improve the handling of migrant and refugee situations, deeming it “inconsistent” with its policies.

Richard Haass, former head of State Department policy under George W Bush, has dubbed the Trump administration’s pattern the “withdrawal doctrine”.

The US mission to the UN announced on Saturday that the country was ending its participation in the Global Compact on Migration.

In September 2016, the 193 members of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a non-binding political declaration, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, pledging to uphold the rights of refugees, help them resettle and ensure they have access to education and jobs.

The Global Compact, based on the declaration, is due to be presented at the UN General Assembly next year. But the US mission said the declaration “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with US immigration and refugee policies and the Trump Administration’s immigration principles”.

In October, Washington said it was pulling out of the UN’s Paris-based culture and education body, Unesco, accusing it of “anti-Israel bias”. The withdrawal is to take effect at the end of next year, when the US will establish an “observer mission” to replace its Unesco representation.

And in June, Trump announced that the US will withdraw from the 196-nation Paris agreement on climate change and seek to negotiate a new global deal.

Declaring he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris”, Trump complained that the accord gives other countries an unfair advantage over US industry and destroys American jobs.

The US pullout will not take effect before November 2020.

Within days of taking office, Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was billed as the world’s biggest trade pact when signed in February 2016, with 11 other Asia-Pacific nations, but not China.

The US pullout killed the deal before implementation. –AFP