President Trump pledged not to interfere in the domestic politics of other countries, saying he would “learn from the mistakes of the past” by seeking “new friends” whose interests align with the United States.
“My job is not to represent the world,” Trump said during his first address before a joint session of Congress. “My job is to represent the United States of America. But we know that America is better off, when there is less conflict — not more.”
Those remarks elaborated on the America First theme Trump sounded during his inaugural address, when he said “that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” Trump’s speech to Congress renounced the regime change policies carried out during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations — as well as, apparently, criticism of other nations’ domestic politics.
“Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people — and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path,” Trump said.
The remarks were consistent with the thinking outlined by Michael Anton, a Trump national security advisor, in an essay recently published by the new pro-Trump journal American Affairs.
“The fact that America has a ‘team interest’ in the success or non-failure of democracy does not mean that we have an interest in trying to impose democracy in places where it is almost certain to fail,” Anton wrote in the essay, which was written before he took a job in the White House, and then published later. “Among the many reasons to be hopeful about President Trump’s foreign policy is that he seems to understand that correcting the errors of the neo-interventionists does not require adopting those of the paleo-isolationists.”
Trump’s congressional address aimed for a compromise between those positions. He touted the NATO alliance while claiming credit for the allies’ increasing willingness to live up to their financial commitments under the terms of the treaty.
He reiterated his desire to forge new friendships, a statement that might trouble allies who fear a rapprochement between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But he anchored that remark in an allusion to Germany, which is one of Putin’s foremost European opponents under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“We want peace, wherever peace can be found,” Trump said. “America is friends today with former enemies. Some of our closest allies, decades ago, fought on the opposite side of these World Wars. This history should give us all faith in the possibilities for a better world.”
