The logic extends flawlessly so it's difficult to say "I'm all for UBI, but only within our borders".

The US has used cheap labor globally for decades, why would the blue collar worker in Indiana qualify more than the blue collar worker in Indonesia? Both are making goods for American billionaires and both are struggling.

From a moral perspective I agree and that should be the long-term goal. Practically, however, the notion of national sovereignty makes it infeasible to implement a global UBI. Within the borders of a country, that country's government can do what is needed to make it work (e.g., punish scofflaws). Across international borders, that's much more difficult. We see this already in that many countries that are "poor" overall have ludicrously high levels of inequality, because a small elite controls all the flows of foreign investment, etc.

To take a simple example: within a country, if you send the UBI money to a local government for disbursement and the local mayor/governor just pockets it, he's still ultimately subject to the legal system of that country and can be jailed, etc. There's no international equivalent of this. If you send some UBI money to Poor Country X for disbursement and the local governor pockets it, there's nothing you can do except not send any more money.

OK, so just send UBI to countries as corrupt or less than western ones.

Thank you for explaining this.

I wasn’t making a moral statement. It’s a matter of practical reality.

Humanity doesn’t really know how to do global policy, even if there are massive potential benefits.