President Trump warned leaders in “every foreign capital” on Friday that his administration will put “America first” in all things.
“We, assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power,” Trump said during his inaugural address. “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only: America first! America first!”
Trump issued that warning after offering a diagnosis of American domestic and foreign policy consistent with his campaign rhetoric. He argued that the international order of alliances and economic partnerships established after World War II had resulted in the exploitation of the United States. He said American taxpayers have subsidized foreign militaries at the expense of American defense spending, and decried manufacturing job losses affecting the middle class.
“We have made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon,” he said.
Trump’s foreign policy views have been closely watched around the world, particularly in Ukraine. The former Soviet satellite surrendered its nuclear weapons arsenal in exchange for a promise that the United States and other Western powers would guarantee its security. But Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, a crucial part of the country, in 2014 and fighting continues in eastern Ukraine.
“It is extremely important the transatlantic union should be kept, and this is by the way a very important demonstration of the role of the United States as a global leader,” Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this week.
“America should be great again.”
Trump’s willingness to exchange compliments with Putin and his criticism of NATO has alarmed American allies, but his inaugural address offered some reassurance on that front.
“We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the earth,” Trump said.
That pledge was an apparent reference both to his commitment to NATO and to his plan to coordinate with Russia to destroy ISIS and other terrorist groups. Perhaps distancing himself from the democracy-building foreign policy of George W. Bush, also vowed that the United States would not “impose our way of life” on the rest of the world.
“We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first,” Trump said. “We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.”
He made that statement one day after Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev accused President Obama of “reckless” meddling in foreign affairs.
“Everyone is aware that the United States has always tried to” steer” almost all global processes, brazenly interfering in the internal affairs of various countries and waging multiple wars on foreign soil,” Medvedev said in a Facebook post. “There is only one explanation for such actions: the interests of the United States. An explanation which is entirely defensible in America itself, though much less so in other countries. But the real issue lies elsewhere – the failure to understand one’ s own true interests.”
