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World News See other World News Articles Title: AN AMERICA FIRST FOREIGN POLICY In his inaugural address, Donald Trump stated, “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first.” Trump apparently first used his catchphrase in a March 2016 interview with the New York Times in the context of foreign policy. The interviewer suggested that Trump was taking something of an “‘America First’ kind of approach, a mistrust of many foreigners, both our adversaries and some of our allies, a sense that they’ve been freeloading off of us for many years.” Trump replied, “Not isolationist, I’m not isolationist, but I am ‘America First.’ So I like the expression. I’m ‘America First.’” Trump’s catchphrase actually has a long history. Historic America First The America First Committee was organized in 1940 to keep America out of another European war. It was formed to keep the United States from repeating the terrible mistake of intervening in World War I. The organization’s 800,000 members included Robert Wood of Sears-Roebuck, Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, future presidents John Kennedy and Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, American Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, and progressives Charles Beard, John Dewey, Bernard Baruch, and Robert La Follette. Perhaps the America First Committee’s most notable member was aviator Charles Lindbergh, who, in a speech in 1941 after the Lend-Lease Act was passed, explained that the America First policy is based upon the belief that the security of a nation lies in the strength and character of its own people. It recommends the maintenance of armed forces sufficient to defend this hemisphere from attack by any combination of foreign powers. It demands faith in an independent American destiny. This is the policy of the America First Committee today. It is a policy not of isolation, but of independence; not of defeat, but of courage. It is a policy that led this nation to success during the most trying years of our history, and it is a policy that will lead us to success again. We have weakened ourselves for many months, and still worse, we have divided our own people by this dabbling in Europe’s wars. While we should have been concentrating on American defense we have been forced to argue over foreign quarrels. We must turn our eyes and our faith back to our own country before it is too late. The America First Committee disbanded after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. America First sentiments predate the America First Committee. After World War I, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles and membership in the League of Nations. The America First slogan was used in the 1920 Republican presidential election campaign. One candidate, progressive Sen. Hiram Johnson, had said in 1919, “Bring home American soldiers. Rescue our own democracy. Restore its free expression. Get American business into normal channels. Let American life, social and economic, be American again.” The Anti-Imperialist League was formed in 1898 in the midst of the Spanish- American War in response to what was perceived as U.S. imperialism and colonial ambition. It included among its members former president Grover Cleveland, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, labor leader Samuel Gompers, and author Mark Twain. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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