When America rejects international law, global order is put at risk

U.S. President Donald Trump has now said the quiet part out loud. Declaring “I don't need for international law,” he has openly challenged not only specific treaties and institutions, but the very idea of a rules-based global order. After threatening to take Greenland from Denmark — a fellow NATO member — by force if necessary, and after asserting that alliances themselves are merely “a matter of choice,” the president has moved from selective disengagement to outright repudiation of the norms that have underpinned international stability for decades. The remarks, delivered in a recent interview with The New York Times, were as startling as they were revealing. Trump suggested that acquiring Greenland could justify abandoning NATO, and further claimed that he would not be constrained by international law, but only his own morality. It was an extraordinary assertion of personal authority over collective rules, implying that sovereignty, treaties and legal restraints are subordinate to the will of a single leader. That such language comes from the head of the world’s mostWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times