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Trump’s Sovereignty Doctrine

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York on September 19, 2017. Lucas Jackson/Reuters

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  • Stewart M. Patrick
    James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program

In an op-ed recently published in U.S. News and World Report, I assess what the president got right and wrong about sovereignty.

President Donald Trump’s reckless threat to “totally destroy” North Korea overshadowed the core theme of his problematic speech to the United Nations: the centrality of “sovereignty” in world politics. The president mentioned that concept no fewer than 21 times. It’s worth considering why he feels so strongly about sovereignty, what he gets right about it, and what he gets wrong.

Read the full op-ed here.

My book, The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World, will be published by Brookings Institution Press on October 31.