Trump's Withdrawal From Migration Summit Shows his Nationalist Colors

In an op-ed recently published in The Hill, I examine the misconception behind President Donald J. Trump’s decision to pull out of the UN conference on migration.

On Friday, President Trump decided that the United States would boycott this week’s United Nations conference on migration in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. That meeting is intended to advance a global compact for migration, a set of principles to ensure more humane treatment for the world’s swelling population of migrants and refugees. But the Trump administration saw something more nefarious afoot: a U.N. power grab to usurp control over U.S. borders. “Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone,” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley declared in a statement released Saturday. “We will decide how to best control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country. The global approach…is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.” The administration’s decision is based on a false premise. At the core of this worldview is a defensive and distorted view of U.S. sovereignty, according to which even non-binding agreements infringe unacceptably on U.S. independence and freedom of action. This siege mentality is antithetical to the very concept of American greatness, much less U.S. global leadership.

Read the full op-ed here.