Emperor Nero was alleged to fiddle while Rome burned: Trump seeks to be “king” (aka emperor) focusing on a larger ballroom while the country goes to hell.
The Presidential Executive Order this past week terminated U.S. membership in 66 international organizations. The selection is bizarre, including withdrawal from the Science and Technology Center in the Ukraine (admittedly an international organization but a slap in the face of a country at war). There is no assurance that the U.S. will not withdraw from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Labour Organization (ILO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), or Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), nor the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF and World Bank Group).
And of course, the United States had already announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and has used “pocket” rescissions to avoid paying dues to many international organizations.
And there are international treaties, conventions, or protocols that the U.S. has not signed, ratified, or has also withdrawn from. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has not been signed, nor the Convention on Biological Diversity (not ratified). As to climate change, the U.S. never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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Last week’s Presidential Executive Order is but one more step in U.S. multilateral withdrawal from the global structure it was central to establishing after World War II and, for 80 years, largely supported. We are at a time of increasing peril; the entire international framework is now on shaky ground.
Adding to legitimate heightened fears are the words from Trump’s mouth in his recent interview with the New York Times. He declared that the only constraint on his power as commander in chief is his “own mortality.” This is beyond alarming, a cause of frightening worry, for everyone, everywhere.
But maybe the response of the oil barons to say no to Trump, and the Catholic press to lambasting J.D. Vance as a false Christian, gives hope.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: US President Donald Trump delivers remarks to the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 23, 2025, at U.N. Headquarters in New York City. Cover Photo Credit: White House / Daniel Torok.
