One of the great challenges of the new century and one of the priorities of President Donald Trump is to reorient the United States’ domestic, economic, and foreign policy to first and foremost serve the interests of the American people. “[Y]ou can never be secure as a nation unless you’re able to feed your people, and unless you’re able to make the things that your economy needs in order to function and ultimately to defend yourself,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a speech to the American Compass, a think tank that explores how to rebuild American capitalism.
Too many U.S. policy decisions in the last three decades have prioritized what was determined to be good for the global economy not the nation state, said Secretary Rubio. Rather, the decision was: “Is this good for prosperity in other places even if it may not be in our interest?”
Globalist policies crept in during the Cold War and were never reversed as conditions changed, said Secretary Rubio.
“We allowed nations to treat us unfairly in trade, but we allowed them to do it because we didn’t want those countries to become victim to a communist revolution that would overthrow them. But then we kept it going. And so today there are multiple countries around the world that are fully developed economies, but whom we have enormous trade imbalances because they want to continue that system moving along. And that has to be corrected.”
Not only did the United States take out the national interest from its economic policies, it also removed the national interest from its foreign policy decision making, said Secretary Rubio.
“The idea that our foreign policy, depending on the place and on the issue, should be centered and focused primarily on what is good for the United States was completely lost. Time and again, we made decisions in foreign policy because of what was good for the international order or what was good for the world. And I’m not saying those things are irrelevant, but the number one priority of our foreign policy. . .needs to be the United States.”
“Virtually every single nation-state we interact with prioritizes their national interest in their interactions with us,” stressed Secretary Rubio. “And we need to begin to do that again, and we’re beginning to do that again.”
Prioritizing National Self-Interest
- VOA Policy
One of the great challenges of the new century and one of the priorities of President Donald Trump is to reorient the United States’ domestic, economic, and foreign policy to first and foremost serve the interests of the American people.
