US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

There is no such thing as "international law", and never has been. Land belongs to people who can control it, and always has.

There is "international law", but no "international police". So the law only as good as long as everyone follow it - so not very good either.

Then you have major power like Russia that constantly abuse it while trying to cover its ass with "internatiomal law" once they themself get hit. This is whem you get system is broken.

I get it suck for people inside the US to see democracy dismantled, but honestly I dont mind Trump to deal with dictators and repressive regimes.

Putin, friends and alike put a lot of effort to prove that only power should matter so its a good irony to see Trump dealing with them their way.

As they say, law is for the poor, little people.

International law even more so. For national laws, there are enforcement mechanisms. If you break a national law, there is a court deciding on punishment and an executive punishing you according to that decision. With international law, there might be a court, but often there isn't even a court. Sometimes there is the UN general assembly, UN security council or a similar body deciding on a political basis whether some violation might have occured. Usually those kinds of decisions are far from impartial, not even pretending any kind of neutrality or fairness.

So even if some international court or some council arrives at a decision that a violation of international law has occured, where is the executive? There isn't one. There is only the equivalent of old wild west dead-or-alive bounties: The decision is an authorization to go to economic war (like in sanctions or blockades) or shooting war. There might be states interested in doing that, but generally only if they think they can win and profit.

So international law is only ever enforced against powerless states without a coalition supporting them. For any larger power, there is no actual international law.

Nazi says that, yes. That was the cornerstone of that ideology and good people hope they will be defeated again.

> This has always been the case, and not just the US either.

the difference is that the US used to pretend that international laws mattered - at least, they selectively only ignore some when it's advantageous, but pay lip service to it being relevant and claim to follow it.

Now, however, trump has blatantly disregard the norms without regards. While everyone knows that the US will get their way militarily even before trump, it used to be a negotiation with law and order at least being pretended to matter. After trump, the pretense is off. It leads to less trust, less negotiation and more hard-lining.

Within one term, trump has destroyed the trust that took more than a century to build.