Krauthammer: ‘I’m Not an America Firster’ – ‘I Welcome’ Shifts In Trump Foreign Policy Doctrine

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” columnist Charles Krauthammer stated that he welcomes President Trump’s recent foreign policy moves, particularly the Syria strike, because “I’m not an America Firster. I thought it was a mistake to enunciate a doctrine in the Inaugural Address which is, we’re coming home.”

Krauthammer said, “[T]he strike on Syria was not something that is a tweak or a slight deviation from what he ran on. … And the reason it is a radical departure is because, in the Inaugural Address he defines national interests very narrowly, and here, what we are back to is the traditional American understanding of national interests as a broad definition, going all the way back to Harry Truman, in which we define our interest as worldwide, otherwise, what is Syria to us?”

He added, “I welcome this. I’m not an America Firster. I thought it was a mistake to enunciate a doctrine in the Inaugural Address which is, we’re coming home. It scared the bee-jeebies out of our allies in NATO, when he talked about it being obsolete. It scared — in the Middle East, the Gulf Arabs were scared to death. I think this is reassuring that we are returning to the classic American definition, where we include our allies, and, most important, we accept world leadership in a way that had not been accepted by Obama, and seemed to be not accepted by Trump the candidate.”

(video via Real Clear Politics)

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