Donald Trump will withdraw American support for the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty

US President Donald Trump on Friday left his country behind the international regime of the conventional arms trade, announcing that He will withdraw US support for a UN treaty that governs the global exchange of arms in order to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

In a speech to the powerful lobby National Shooting Association (NRA), Trump announced that he would withdraw US support for the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), a pact that came into force in 2014 in a hundred countries and affects small arms to ships and fighter jets.

"The UN will soon receive a formal notification stating that The United States rejects this treatyTrump stressed at the annual meeting of the NRA in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The United States signed this UN treaty in 2013, under the Barack Obama government, but the US Congress never ratified it, so it did not come into force in the country.

Trump's decision therefore has a more symbolic than practical impact, but it certainly brings US participation -the largest arms exporter in the world- in a pact that prohibits the delivery of weapons to countries where it is determined that they could be used to genocide or war crimes.

The US government will remain at the same level as other major arms sellers, such as Russia and China, who have not signed the UN treaty.

"We will cancel the effect of the United States signature on this deeply erroneous treaty"badured Trump.

The President signed a letter in which he asked the Senate "to stop the treaty ratification process" and I sent him to him "at the oval office", where he promised to "get rid of" him.

"We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to respect their freedom (to carry arms) guaranteed by the Second Amendment"of the US Constitution, Trump promised the NRA.

This pressure group, which made a donation $ 30 million in his election campaign in 2016, opposed the signing of the ATT in 2013, saying that no international standard should interfere in its constitutional right to possession and trade in weapons.

Since coming to power in 2017, Trump has distanced itself from many international forums and pacts, including the nuclear deal with Iran and the Paris climate agreement.. Next August, it will also abandon the INF Treaty, for which the United States and Russia have agreed to eliminate their short and medium range missiles.

The Arms Trade Treaty was born out of a proposal by Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica (1986-1990 and 2006-2010) and Nobel Peace Prizeand seeks to end the flow of arms to conflict areas, promoting respect for human rights.

Among the teams that regulate the pact, there is short weapons to tanks and fighter planes, pbading through missiles, armored vehicles and helicopters for military operations.

Until this month, One hundred countries around the world have ratified the agreement, comprising several of the world's leading arms exporters, such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain; and several countries in Latin America, such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina or Chile.

The White House, however, argued that Other major arms exporters, including Russia and China, have not ratified the treaty, reducing its global impact.

"The United States is already a leader in standards to regulate arms transfers", badured reporters a senior US official, who requested anonymity.

"Therefore, this treaty does not meet any foreign policy objective of the United States and only endanger the right of US citizens" to own weapons, said the source.

The decision scandalized several figures of the democratic opposition, including the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house, Eliot Engel, who plans to schedule a hearing on the subject.

"Today, the President has withdrawn the United States from a global treaty to control arms trafficking for political reasons., to appease the National Rifle Association. It is odious that he is using international diplomacy to accept his base (…) and more about weapons that put lives at risk, "said Engel.

Asked about the decision, the spokesman for the UN, Stéphane Dujarric, pointed out that the Secretary General, António Guterres, is convinced of the "need for further action in the field of disarmament" and recalled that "it has been made very clearly" in favor of this treaty and other arms control treaties.