![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/tr\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/image001-26.jpg\" "\\"image001-26-jpg\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
View Photos<\/p>\n
The new president is expected to make his mark on an aggressive legislative agenda.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/tr\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/image002-16.jpg\" "\\"image002-16-jpg\\"")
<\/p>\n
By Charles Krauthammer Opinion writer January 26 at 7:19 PM<\/p>\n
The flurry of bold executive orders and of highly provocative Cabinet nominations (such as a secretary of education who actually believes in school choice) has been encouraging to conservative skeptics of Donald Trump. But it shouldn\u2019t erase the troubling memory of one major element of Trump\u2019s inaugural address.<\/p>\n
The foreign policy section has received far less attention than so revolutionary a declaration deserved. It radically redefined the American national interest as understood since World War\u2009II.<\/p>\n
Trump outlined a world in which foreign relations are collapsed into a zero-sum game. They gain, we lose. As in: \u201cFor many decades, we\u2019ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries\u201d while depleting our own.<\/p>\n
Opinions newsletter<\/p>\n
Thought-provoking opinions and commentary, in your inbox daily.<\/p>\n
And most provocatively this: \u201cThe wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.\u201d Bernie Sanders believes that a corrupt establishment has ripped off the middle class to give to the rich. Trump believes those miscreants have given away our patrimony to undeserving, ungrateful foreigners as well.<\/p>\n
JFK\u2019s inaugural pledged to support any friend and oppose any foe to assure the success of liberty. Note that Trump makes no distinction between friend and foe (and no reference to liberty). They\u2019re all out to use, exploit and surpass us.<\/p>\n
[Newt Gingrich: Margaret Thatcher is the real model for the Trump presidency]<\/em><\/p>\n No more, declared Trump: \u201cFrom this day forward, it\u2019s going to be only America First.\u201d<\/p>\n Imagine how this resonates abroad. \u201cAmerica First\u201d was the name of the organization led by Charles Lindbergh that bitterly fought FDR before U.S. entry into World War II \u2014 right through the Battle of Britain \u2014 to keep America neutral between Churchill\u2019s Britain and Hitler\u2019s Reich. (Then came Pearl Harbor. Within a week, America First dissolved itself in shame.)<\/p>\n Not that Trump was consciously imitating Lindbergh. I doubt he was even aware of the reference. He just liked the phrase. But I can assure you that in London and in every world capital they are aware of the antecedent and the intimations of a new American isolationism. Trump gave them good reason to think so, going on to note \u201cthe right of all nations to put their own interests first.\u201d America included.<\/p>\n Some claim that putting America first is a reassertion of American exceptionalism. On the contrary, it is the antithesis. It makes America no different from all the other countries that define themselves by a particularist blood-and-soil nationalism. What made America exceptional, unique in the world, was defining its own national interest beyond its narrow economic and security needs to encompass the safety and prosperity of a vast array of allies. A free world marked by open trade and mutual defense was President Truman\u2019s vision, shared by every president since.<\/p>\n Until now.<\/p>\n Some have argued that Trump is just dangling a bargaining chip to negotiate better terms of trade or alliance. Or that Trump\u2019s views are so changeable and unstable \u2014 telling European newspapers two weeks ago that NATO is obsolete and then saying \u201cNATO is very important to me\u201d \u2014 that this is just another unmoored entry on a ledger of confusion.<\/p>\n But both claims are demonstrably wrong. An inaugural address is no off-the-cuff riff. These words are the product of at least three weeks of deliberate crafting for an address that Trump\u2019s spokesman said was intended to express his philosophy. Moreover, to remove any ambiguity, Trump prefaced his \u201cAmerica First\u201d proclamation with: \u201cFrom this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.\u201d<\/p>\n [Trump is his administration\u2019s own worst enemy on foreign policy]<\/em><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s vision misunderstands the logic underlying the far larger, far-reaching view of Truman. The Marshall Plan surely took wealth away from the American middle class and distributed it abroad. But for a reason. Altruism, in part. But mostly to stabilize Western Europe as a bulwark against an existential global enemy.<\/p>\n We carried many free riders throughout the Cold War. The burden was heavy. But this was not a mindless act of charity; it was an exercise in enlightened self-interest. After all, it was indeed better to subsidize foreign armies \u2014 German, South Korean, Turkish and dozens of others \u2014 and have them stand with us, rather than stationing even more American troops everywhere around the world at greater risk of both blood and treasure.<\/p>\n We are embarking upon insularity and smallness. Nor is this just theory. Trump\u2019s long-promised but nonetheless abrupt withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the momentous first fruit of his foreign policy doctrine. Last year the prime minister of Singapore told John McCain that if we pulled out of the TPP \u201cyou\u2019ll be finished in Asia.\u201d He knows the region.<\/p>\n For 70 years, we sustained an international system of open commerce and democratic alliances that has enabled America and the West to grow and thrive. Global leadership is what made America great. We abandon it at our peril.<\/p>\n Read more from Charles Krauthammer\u2019s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.<\/em><\/p>\n Read more on this topic:<\/strong><\/p>\n Sebastian Mallaby: Trump says Europe is in trouble. He has a point.<\/p>\n Anne Applebaum: Trump\u2019s dark promise to return to a mythical past<\/p>\n David Ignatius: Trump could smash the old world order \u2014 and replace it with what?<\/p>\n Charles Krauthammer: What happened to the honeymoon?<\/p>\n The Post\u2019s View: In his inaugural address, Trump leaves America\u2019s better angels behind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" See what President Trump has been doing since taking office View Photos The new president is expected to make his mark on an aggressive legislative agenda. By Charles Krauthammer Opinion writer January 26 at 7:19 PM The flurry of bold executive orders and of highly provocative Cabinet nominations (such as a secretary of education who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4092,"featured_media":783313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[10093],"class_list":["post-174439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}