Foreign Policy of The George W. Bush Administration - International Treaties

International Treaties

On December 14, 2001, Bush withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a bedrock of U.S.–Soviet nuclear stability during the Cold War era. Bush stated, "I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks." The National Missile Defense project Bush supported is being designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles and destroy them in flight. Critics doubted that the project could ever work and said that it would cost US$53 billion from 2004 to 2009, being the largest single line item in the Pentagon's funding.

The Bush presidency was also marked by diplomatic tensions with the People's Republic of China and North Korea, the latter of which admitted in 2003 to having been in the process of building nuclear weapons and threatened to use them if provoked by the U.S. The administration was concerned that Iran may also be developing nuclear weapons, although Iran has denied such allegations, maintaining that it is pursuing peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Bush made his first visit to Europe in June 2001. Bush came under criticism from European leaders for the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, which was aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. He asserted that the Kyoto Protocol is "unfair and ineffective" because it would exempt 80 percent of the world and "cause serious harm to the U.S. economy".

Many governments have criticized the failure of the United States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed but not submitted for ratification by the previous administration. Former President Bill Clinton recommended that his successor not submit the treaty for ratification until the wording was altered to reflect U.S. concerns. Bush, who was opposed to the treaty, rescinded U.S. executive approval from the proposed treaty. In 1997, prior to the Kyoto negotiations, the Byrd–Hagel Resolution passed in the U.S. Senate by a 95–0 vote. The resolution stated that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized ones, or that "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States".