Updates | The Week of September 18, 2017
President Trump has called for U.N. reform, but stated that the Trump Administration will be “partners in your work” (NYT, WaPo, Politico).
- President Trump should support the U.N., even if he believes in “America first,” argues Jennifer Norris at Just Security.
President Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly, vowing to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the United States (NYTimes, WSJ).
- The bombastic speech shattered US political norms and had a whiff of authoritarianism, writes Stephen Collinson at CNN.
- President Trump has defined his foreign policy doctrine as sovereignty for major powers, write Noah Bierman and David Lauter at the LA Times.
- President Trump mentioned “sovereignty” 21 times, shamefully appealing to national sovereignty over human rights and deflecting attention from the human rights abuses of his own administration, writes Joshua Manson at the ACLU.
President Trump announced a new executive order imposing additional sanctions against North Korea (L.A. Times, NYT, WSJ).
- The Hill provides a list of five things to know about the proposed sanctions, noting that President Trump is willing to work around Congress.
President Trump says he has made a decision on the Iran deal, but has not announced the decision (NYT, WaPo).
If President Trump ends the Iran deal, he may be unable to trigger the snapback provision to ensure the reimposition of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran, Jean Galbraith argues (Opinio Juris).
- If President Trump decides Iran is not in compliance with the terms of the deal, it begins a 60-day window in which Congress must decide whether to reimpose U.S. sanctions that were waived as part of the deal (WaPo).
- There is significant pushback to Trump’s plan to decertify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal (Cato).