On
April 27th Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee for
president, gave a foreign policy speech.
It was short on details, as all such speeches are at this stage in an
election, but its basic message was that he would look out for America
first. That brought universal derision
from the East Coast media and foreign policy experts, as well as from Hillary
Clinton.
Excuse
me? What nation doesn’t look out for
itself first? China certainly does. Russia certainly does. North Korea
certainly does. India and Pakistan and
France and Germany and …and … and….
Every nation looks out first for its own national interests. What else is a national government for if not
to look out first for the interests of the people who elect it? If America doesn’t look after its own interests just who will?
For
example, he is perfectly right that NATO isn’t pulling its weight. NATO members, by agreement, are each supposed
to spend at least 2% of their GDP annually on defense. Of the 28 NATO members, only 5 currently meet
that requirement (the US, Great Britain, Greece, Poland, and Estonia). The rest
rely on America to provide what they are unwilling to fund.
I
have no idea if Trump really knows how to look out effectively for our national
interest, but it seems to me telling that the establishment thinks this is a crazy
thing to do. It seems to me the only
people who wouldn’t care if a president looked out first for the interests of
the nation that elected him would be big multinational corporations and the international
billionaires who move their money around the world and don’t consider
themselves citizens of any particular nation.
Is that who the current East Coast political establishment is beholden
to?
This
seems to me one more symptom of how the current ruling establishment is out of
touch with the common American voter.
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