Politics

House Bill Wants US To Break From UN

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Jordan Fox Reporting Intern
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A bill introduced to the House of Representatives, called the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017, is looking to break the United States away from the United Nations completely.

The bill, introduced by Republican Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, was recently sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Rogers proposed a similar bill in 2015, saying in a statement at that time that, “The U.N. continues to prove it’s an inefficient bureaucracy and a complete waste of American tax dollars.”

The bill would take two years to go into effect, and it looks to repeal United States involvement in the World Health Organization, repeal diplomatic immunity for United Nations officers in the U.S., and reverse the United Nations Participation Act of 1945, which was signed after World War II to facilitate the U.S. joining the U.N. in the first place.

The United Nations is funded by its member states, but the U.S. is by far the largest supporter of the organization. By paying to keep the United Nations running, the U.S. supports peacekeeping missions and human rights programs.

However, Rogers argues that, “Although the United States makes up almost a quarter of the U.N.’s annual budget, the U.N. has attempted a number of actions that attack our rights as U.S. citizens.”

For example, Rogers cites several U.N.-funded initiatives like “the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would subject our country to internationally-based environmental mandates, costing American businesses more money, or the U.N.’s work to re-establish an international regulation regime on global warming which would heavily target our fossil fuels.”

Only a small portion of the United States budget goes to funding the U.N., but Rogers says any amount of money is too much.

“Why should the American taxpayer bankroll an international organization that works against America’s interests around the world?” Rogers said. “The time is now to restore and protect American sovereignty and get out of the United Nations.”