Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine encountered stormy weather in the community of American globalists who characterize it as a mix of nationalism, unilateralism, and xenophobia. The substantive disagreements could not be more explicit: globalists see American commitments as implicitly limitless and irreversible, and Trump, driven by effectiveness, not ideology, believes the existing commitments are not eternal and are limited by resources. Therefore, we must define our national interests to shape our commitments, not allow existing commitments to define our interests.
The “my country first” concept is not a new approach to international order. It originated in the 17th century with a Frenchman, Armand-Jean du Plessis, known as Cardinal de Richelieu. Historically, authority was personal and reflected the rulers’ will, which was often capricious, unpredictable, and counterproductive. To create stability in the international system, Richelieu offered a revolutionary concept, the guiding principle of which was national interest as perceived by objective political and security necessities. This principle became later known as raison d’état or national interests, the indispensable element of a successful foreign policy for most of the world. Richelieu’s design had been practiced by the United States pretty much till the ascendance of President Woodrow Wilson.
Image: Donald Trump. YouTube screen grab.
Wilson sought to impose American virtues upon the world. His vision was to hold every nation to our social justice and human rights standards and to end tyranny worldwide. Speaking to the graduating class at West Point in 1916, Wilson told the graduates,
In the providence of God a continent had been kept unused and waiting for a peaceful people who loved liberty and the rights of men more than they lowed anything else to come and set up an unselfish commonwealth.
Since then, every American president has been advocating policies that became globalists’ rallying cry for imposing democracies around the globe and building the economies of other nations. With each president, the policy was growing progressively toward helping others until the interests of Americans were nearly forgotten.
President Eisenhower described America’s foreign policy as an extension of America’s moral responsibilities. “For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid,” he said in his January 20, 1953, inaugural address.
On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address in which he announced that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, and oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”
Lyndon Johnson echoed Kennedy in his Inaugural address on January 20, 1965: “If American lives must end and American treasure be spilled, in countries we barely know, then that is the price that change has demanded of conviction and our enduring covenant.”
In 1821, when John Quincy Adams warned Americans against the “distant monsters,” he could not have imagined the sheer number and magnitude of monsters his presidential descendants would discover.
Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen—just to name a few “countries we barely know” where heavy burdens have been borne, prices paid, and treasure spilled. Americans shed blood for causes that they barely grasped. In fact, every time America attempted to replace stability with democracy by removing autocratic governments, it accomplished chaos and destruction. The fundamental flaw of this policy was that American leaders have taken their values so much for granted that they rarely recognize how repugnant and unsettling these values can appear to others.
In 2024, though, we have approached the point of ideological and financial bankruptcy and can no longer maintain our commitments to protect scores of nations from Central and South America to the Baltics and the Balkans, from the Middle East to the Far East, and the immoral commitment to NATO. NATO, which is called an alliance, is a horde of dependents. The European Union, with a population of 500 million and a combined GDP akin to the United States, continues to rely on American taxpayers to maintain its security. There is an old saying—“God made sheep to shear them”—and the NATO members have been shamelessly exploiting the USA.
During his tenure, rump had also addressed the economic consequences of globalization. Contrary to what globalists promulgate, globalism is not a theory of economic expansion and wealth creation in the developing world. It is an economic model emanating from the decidedly pro-Marxist ideology of redistribution of wealth on a global scale, and it has been accomplishing exactly what was intended.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates were all built with American oil money. China’s economy has become a manufacturing plant for American corporations. Profits from the manufactured goods sold on the American market have built China’s economy, making China capable of economically, militarily, and politically challenging US dominance. Over the past three decades, it has led to the de-industrialization of the United States and the loss of millions of well-paying jobs. Indeed, while building and protecting other countries, we lost ours.
It is not known whether Trump was familiar with Richelieu’s writings on the politics of power. He, indeed, has practiced Richelieu’s essential principles with extraordinary consistency and relevance. His powerful analytical skills and exceptional geopolitical intuition had focused on American interests. During his first term, Trump overrode conventional wisdom and marked the formal end of the period of globalism. He was elected to make America great again and was true to his word.
Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think tank that examines national security, energy, risk analysis, and other public policy issues. He is the author of “Anatomy of a Bolshevik” and “Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It.” Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at alex.g.markovsky@gmail.com.
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