“ We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy,” President Trump told United Nations officials Tuesday. His comment was a specific rejection of the authority of the International Criminal Court, but it could have applied to other matters as well. For example, the president also justified withdrawing the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council on the grounds that it had become a sham, an enabler of human rights abuses in desperate need of reform.

“America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination,” Trump said, offering American friendship as an alternative to the hegemony that Russia and China are trying to impose worldwide. “I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.”

These admonitions, contrary to much punditry, do not amount to an “isolationist” or “‘go it alone” approach to world affairs. That's just a convenient and lazy way for people who disagree to denigrate them. Rather, the president reminded the world that the U.S. is a sovereign nation, governed by and for Americans and no one else.

Although many seek to find something sinister in this idea, Trump is right. And it is good that he used the words “sovereign” and “sovereignty” 13 times.

The U.S. Constitution is an experiment in self-government, deriving from a longer tradition of social contract theory. It presupposes that the moral legitimacy of any government depends not upon its fulfillment of obligations to foreign powers or international standards or a world popularity contest, but upon its commitment to and protection of the natural rights of its own citizens.

If the federal government is taking actions that don’t directly or indirectly promote American citizens’ common interests and natural rights, then whose interests and whose rights is it promoting? Any such exercise of power is wrong.

When a government fails to fulfill this essential obligation to its citizens, it loses its legitimacy, and those subjected to it are justified in rebellion. This was the theory behind the Declaration of Independence. With each passing day, members of all three branches of the current federal government should be thinking of how to make sure America does not slide away from this principle.

The nation is nowhere near the point at which armed rebellion could be justified, but it has suffered a lot under rulers who failed to put America first. There is broad agreement today that officials of both political parties in Congress and in the administration of President George W. Bush chose the Iraq War. In hindsight, this was a war of choice that did not promote American interests in the region or secure the liberties of citizens at home.

Some U.S. officials have also tried to commit the U.S. to climate treaties and agreements, Kyoto 20 years ago and Paris more recently, that would have proven highly expensive and extremely damaging to our economy, while having no impact on global warming. This is another good example of government outgrowing its usefulness.

Trump would like to argue that U.S. trade policy follows this same pattern. We strongly disagree. Open trade with other nations, even when it results in large trade deficits, is a win-win for consumers and has not cost jobs. But when you watch how Trump pursues his misguided trade policy, you can see this thread running through it. It provides a unified theory of what motivates this famously impulsive man in government.

If there is a Trump Doctrine, it can be summed up in this way: First, government has no role at all except to serve its citizens. It must make its decisions based on American rights and interests, full stop.

Second, the nations of the world can neither call on the U.S. to solve every problem, hence Trump's insistence upon NATO nations beefing up their military spending and avoiding dependency on Russia, and nor can they use unaccountable bureaucracy by needling us with spurious prosecutions in the International Criminal Court.

Third, this assertion of sovereignty does not entail isolationism. It will frequently require that America engage in robust cooperation with other nations where there are mutual interests. Isolationism would in many cases be a betrayal of Americans’ rights and interests.

For those who believe that Trump’s policy is incoherent, or just a mish-mash of inherited conservative ideas with some anti-immigration and anti-trade rhetoric thrown in, this speech should make them think again. Trump has a coherent view of the world, and it’s very helpful to hear it spelled out in this way.