When Trump ‘unsigned’ arms treaty, it was about more than guns

When President Donald Trump recently withdrew the U.S. imprimatur from the international Arms Trade Treaty – flinging into a crowd of National Rifle Association members the big Sharpie he’d just used to sign his order – the showmanship had no legal implications.

But the dramatic gesture was filled with symbolic meaning.

Mr. Trump said he was “unsigning” a document the United States had negotiated with other members of the United Nations and which former President Barack Obama signed in 2013.

Experts in international law noted, however, that the U.S. had never ratified the treaty – intended to set global standards for conventional arms transfers and deny weapons to human-rights violators – which had lain forgotten in the Senate for years.

In any case, they added, the signature of one president can’t be revoked by another.

The deeper meaning‘Never surrender’ sovereigntyU.S. leadership is missedThe value of U.S. participation