President Trump announced the federal government will never ratify the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, signed in the waning days of the Obama administration.
Trump’s revelation comes during rising concerns from Second Amendment activists that through the treaty foreign laws could curtain American citizens’ right to bear arms.
Fox News reports:
“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. trade treaty,” Trump told an audience at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.
“I am officially announcing today that the United States will be revoking the effect of America’s signature from this badly misguided treaty, we’re taking our signature back,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama signed the treaty in 2013 and sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification. Onstage Friday, Trump signed a notice to the Senate asking it to stop the ratification process and return the treaty to the White House, “where I will dispose of it.”
The treaty seeks to regulate international trade in conventional arms, including everything from tanks to small arms, specifically looking to “prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion.”