President Trump recently delivered a scathing address at the United Nations, criticizing Europe for allowing unbridled immigration and warning it would lead to the continent’s destruction. He contrasted this with his own record, noting his policies had reduced illegal entries into the United States to about 5 percent of the level under Biden.
Trump was criticized in Europe and elsewhere for his immigration policies, even though they were clearly better for the US and despite data showing how immigration is destabilizing Europe. Many world leaders not only rejected Trump’s recommendations but also wanted him to reverse US immigration policies, reopen the borders, and allow 20 million illegal immigrants to remain in the country. Global reactions to his speech reflected the broader belief that foreign governments should have a say in American domestic policies such as immigration.
On the first day of his first administration, in January 2017, Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade deal. He argued it was a bad agreement that would harm American workers while benefiting special interests.
Trump declared that his administration’s policy would be to prioritize the financial well-being of Americans in all negotiations and to create fair, economically beneficial agreements that served their interests. He emphasized his intention to negotiate directly with individual countries on a one-on-one basis rather than through large multilateral deals.
Critics around the world accused him of undermining global trade, but his decision effectively ended the TPP, which was largely scrapped after the U.S. withdrawal. During the campaign, Trump had been blunt, calling the TPP “another disaster done and pushed by special interests” and “a continuing rape of our country.”
Also, during his first term, Trump was sharply criticized for withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. Opponents claimed the move would damage the WHO’s credibility and weaken compliance among member states.
Trump defended the decision by citing the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, its bias toward China, and its lack of independence from political pressure. He also argued the WHO demanded unfairly high payments from the US, while China, with a population more than four times larger, contributed nearly 90 percent less.
Similar criticism resurfaced in 2025 when RFK Jr. urged the US to reject new global health agreements, calling the WHO “moribund.” That May, 124 countries voted for the WHO Pandemic Accord, with only 11 abstentions, but RFK Jr. urged states to reject it. In September, he dismissed a UN declaration on non-communicable diseases, declaring the United States would “walk away” from the agreement.
On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal. Trump argued that the agreement, negotiated under Obama, ultimately allowed Iran to continue developing its nuclear weapons program. Global leaders condemned the move, claiming it made the world less safe, but Trump countered that the real danger was a nuclear-armed Iran, and that the JCPOA enabled exactly that outcome.
Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement in June 2017, arguing that it imposed unfair burdens on the American economy. World leaders objected, warning the move would encourage other countries to refuse compliance, but Trump insisted the agreement was “the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.”
He said it left American workers and taxpayers to absorb the cost in the form of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and diminished production. Trump claimed compliance could cost as many as 2.7 million American jobs by 2025, while allowing some of the world’s worst polluters to benefit. He singled out China, the world’s largest polluter, for being permitted to increase emissions even as the US and Europe were pressured to reduce theirs.
Biden rejoined the agreement in 2021, but Trump again withdrew in 2025, calling it “the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off” and declaring, “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”
Complaints about tariffs were another case where the world was angry that Trump acted in America’s best interest. Beyond concerns about reduced trade with the US, world leaders claimed that higher American tariffs would encourage other countries to raise tariffs against one another. However, every nation retains full autonomy to set its own trade policies—Trump did not force anyone to act.
In a similar vein, many economists in the US and abroad argued that Trump’s tariffs would fail because they would “force” foreign countries to raise tariffs against the United States. This is false. American tariffs do not compel other nations to act; they are intended to bring foreign governments to the negotiating table and strengthen the US bargaining position. They do not obligate other countries to offer the US worse deals.
Now, nine months into the administration, both the US and its trading partners have adjusted, proving that Trump’s policy was the right one for America regardless of foreign objections. The United States is a sovereign nation, and the responsibility of the American president is to make decisions that serve American interests, regardless of whether other countries or international bodies approve.
The ACLU wrote that human rights groups, international law experts, and policy analysts have raised concerns that some of Donald Trump’s immigration policies and rhetoric enable authoritarianism and create conditions that could lead to mass atrocities, though there is debate over the use of the term “genocide.” According to the ACLU, critics argue that Trump’s policies are not isolated but part of a broader pattern that weakens democratic institutions and endangers vulnerable populations around the world.
Examining this criticism, legal experts have no authority over “rhetoric” unless that rhetoric violates the law, and the criticism does not claim that Trump’s words are illegal. The same logic applies to policies. International law experts may comment on the legality of US policies, but in this case the claim is not that the policies themselves are unlawful; rather, the argument is that they might inspire negative behavior by leaders in other countries. In addition to being a spurious claim, it does not constitute a violation of the law.
The Asia Times, a staunchly pro-CCP publication that hates Trump and hates the US, wrote that Trump’s rhetoric and immigration policies “provide new fuel for Myanmar’s Rohingya genocide.” Unlike the ACLU’s broad assertion that Trump’s policies “enable” authoritarianism, Asia Times linked them to a specific genocide, one that began under Obama, continues today, and which Trump has never mentioned, referenced, or alluded to.
By this logic, President Trump should reopen the southern border and allow unbridled illegal immigration in order to prevent a genocide in Myanmar. And if liberals truly believe this reasoning, then why did the genocide continue under the open-border policies of Obama and Biden?
Genocide Watch claimed that Trump’s mass deportation policies violated international law, stating: “President Trump’s order to arrest and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of refugees, violates US obligations under the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees. The US Senate ratified that treaty unanimously in 1968. 147 nations are States Parties to the treaty.”
However, a closer reading of the report shows that the only possible legal challenge concerns the deportation of asylum seekers, not illegal aliens in general. The Convention defines who qualifies as a refugee and applies specifically to individuals granted asylum; it does not provide blanket protection to all undocumented immigrants.
The claim also contains other problems. While the Senate’s role is to approve or reject treaties, ratification itself is an executive act performed by the president, not the legislative branch. Furthermore, the 1967 Refugee Protocol has generally been regarded as non-self-executing in US law. This means it does not automatically have the force of law domestically and requires implementing legislation. US courts have consistently concluded that the Protocol is not self-executing, and both the president and the Senate believed that pre-existing domestic law governing refugees would be sufficient to implement it.
The bottom line is that the US president is chosen by the American people to do what is best for the United States. Since World War II, the US has often shouldered the burden of helping other nations, but President Trump is demanding a rebalancing of the system, one in which the US prioritizes its own interests and Europe takes greater responsibility for solving some of the world’s problems.
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