The United Nations received a bit of unwelcome, though probably expected news from the White House this weekend via U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The organization’s New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (which you can read about here) had been given a thumbs up by the Obama administration last year and sought to impose guidelines on the acceptance of various “migrants” and refugees by member nations. The agreement has one less member as of this morning, however, because Haley basically told the U.N. to pack sand. (NBC News)

The United States has walked away from a United Nations effort to ease the global migration and refugee crisis, with the Trump administration saying it was no longer compatible with U.S. principles or priorities on the issue. In a statement, the U.S. Mission said the UN’s New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants — recognized by the U.S. last year under the Obama administration — “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies.” Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, said: “Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone. We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter the country.”

Rex Tillerson jumped onboard quickly, agreeing with the President and Nikki Haley. The agreement was designed to pave the way for the more sweeping Global Compact for Migration this year.

Unfortunately for the United Nations, these plans are essentially antithetical to current United States policy. It’s not up to any global organization to dictate how many migrants individual nation states “must” take in or what processes will be used to determine those numbers. Portions of Europe may be fine with having such decisions made for them (though the number of EU members willing to go along with this is shrinking by the month) but look at the results it’s brought them. Such policies are the primary reason that Angela Merkel has still been unable to form a new, ruling government coalition weeks after the last round of German elections.

And even some of the member nations who signed on to the agreement clearly had no intention of honoring it. Just last week we discussed the situation in Japan, where they have taken in all of three refugees this year and informed the U.N. that they have zero intention of being rushed into taking any more. Meanwhile, back in the EU, Hungary has been thumbing their nose at Brussels for going on two years now and there doesn’t seem to be a thing they can do about it.

I realize that the entire concept of “globalism” has become a bone of contention in American politics, particularly in the past couple of years. This agreement with the United Nations was a prime example of just how far such concepts can lead us off track. This was a strong statement from the White House letting the U.N. know that the new management was not going to be bound by agreements entered into by the Obama administration which carry the force of treaties but are not approved by Congress. Well done.