Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on April 27, 2016.
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“I believe easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russian Federation from a position of strength only is possible, absolutely possible”. “‘America first’ will be the major and overriding theme of my administration”.
But many were quick to point out the contradictions in a strategy of restoring USA strength and crushing the Islamic State group while cutting allies loose.
In a major foreign policy speech short on specifics that left Washington experts scratching their heads, Trump warned that Europe and Asia may have to defend themselves.
As a result, during the past 35 years, our American middle class – which was 72 percent and the world’s strongest in 1980 – has been reduced to 42 percent, which today ranks us behind Germany, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Canada and many other countries.
“To our friends and allies, I say America is going to be strong again”.
“If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the ‘woman card, ‘ then deal me in”, Clinton said in Philadelphia as she celebrated wins in four out of five of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries. He writes that the real audience for the speech was independent American voters who may have lost confidence in Washington, voters that he will need if he is to beat Hillary Clinton in the fall.
Trump said if he is elected president he would call for a summit with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies and a separate summit with Asian allies. “We have the power over China, economic power”, he said.
Mr. Trump has proved to be an effective campaigner, but his populist bromides would be disasters if posed as actual policies.
Trump usually speaks in an off-the-cuff manner, but he delivered Wednesday’s speech with the aid of a teleprompter as he sought to make himself appealing to more Republican voters. Critics have said repeatedly that he has not shown an ability to act and sound “presidential”.
In the Republican presidential frontrunner’s telling, even the knottiest problems in geopolitics are simple exercises in brinksmanship-ready to be solved at speed once a steely negotiator like President Trump is sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office.
Mr Trump’s genius is to suggest that if America has suffered setbacks it is because it is too good and generous a nation for a wicked and ungrateful world, and that it is now time to be more selfish and harsh. Cruz noted that Trump’s convention manager was “widely recognized for his entanglements with corrupt foreign regimes and anti-democracy rulers”.
Political pundits quickly pointed out that “America First” was a slogan first developed by famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, who pushed a non-interventionist policy before the USA entry in World War Two.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham tweeting “not sure who is advising Trump on foreign policy but I can understand why he’s not revealing their names”.
But Republican former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich voiced support. “It’s going to be some of my views on foreign policy and defense and lots of other things, and part of it is economics”. “It is worth reading and thinking about”.
Experienced foreign policy hands sigh at such conditions, noting that being a superpower has often been a thankless task, and that America accrues great benefits as well as costs from being a global guarantor of security.
Donald Trump has set out his plan for foreign policy if he becomes the next president of the United States.
Trump’s criticisms of American foreign policy included his beliefs that the nation’s resources are overextended; numerous nation’s allies aren’t paying their fair share; allies fear they can’t depend on us; and the nation’s rivals no longer respect us.
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Reagan might not have loved everything about Trump’s speech, but building up American military capability in an effort to reduce the need to deploy force was a staple of his national security philosophy and at the core of what Trump was saying.
