The United States of America was founded by Europeans united in one singular purpose: to get away from Europe.
They were tired of wars that moved boundaries of kingdoms. They were fed up with absolute hereditary monarchs that ruled by whim. They could no longer tolerate government and social institutions being controlled by and for the benefit of the elite. No longer would they tolerate religious persecution and the freedoms to speak and think only if approved by the ruling class.
Ethnically these people were Dutch, Flemish, French, Dane, Norwegian, English, Scots, Irish, Germans, Portuguese, and Italians. The people conversed and wrote in English, German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Spanish, and Hebrew.
They called themselves Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and Dutch Reformed.
In his farewell address, the first president George Washington urged the American people to take advantage of their isolated position and avoid attachments and entanglements in foreign affairs, especially those of Europe.
The national motto might as well have been “Leave us alone.”
The Monroe Doctrine was an attempt not so much to extend US influence in the hemisphere, but to keep the Europeans out. In 1902, a naval blockade against Venezuela by Great Britain, Germany, and Italy began after its president refused to pay foreign damages suffered by European citizens in recent Venezuelan civil wars. President Theodore Roosevelt refused to intercede as he saw the Doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, not intervention per se.
The first “Progressive” US president changed US foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson lowered tariffs to encourage global trade and wanted to broker peace during World War One. But he hesitated on the peace negotiations and decided that the US needed “to make the world safe for democracy” because “Germany threatened American global ideals of democracy and peace through militarism.”
Nothing has been the same since. Every subsequent US president has believed that the US had an obligation, and its president himself had a personal responsibility, to be the leader of the “free” world.
Joseph Stalin broke his promise to Franklin Roosevelt that he would hold free elections in Eastern Europe, a pledge that presidential successor Harry Truman never forgave. Truman was a nationalist, who had “a colony image of China” and could have but did not work with victorious Communist China, which then defied Truman in the Korean War.
An attack on Richard Nixon’s motorcade occurred in Caracas in 1958 while Nixon was Vice President. The visit took place only months after the overthrow of Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who was later granted asylum by the US.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter hosted the Shah of Iran, even as the most influential leader of the opposition to the Shah Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile. On November 4, 1979, a demonstration organized by Iranian student unions loyal to Khomeini took over Carter’s US embassy in Tehran.
Barack Obama “campaigned” for US president in Europe and later described Vladimir Putin as “One of the sorts of men who had once run the Chicago machine, and who viewed patronage, bribery, shakedowns, fraud, and occasional violence as legitimate tools of the trade.” Obama proclaimed himself “America’s first Pacific president” as China was taking the regional waters.
These are but a few examples of the US moving as far away from Washington’s 1796 foreign policy admonition as possible.
China just “brokered” a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations, with some saying this will bring peace and stability to the Middle East. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Sunni/Shiite proxy war in Yemen will continue as that conflict is for domestic political consumption in Sunni Saudi and Shiite Iran. This was a Russian (ally of Iran)/Chinese initiative with Xi Jinping as the “pretty face.”
It is about BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and soon will be “BRICSSI” with the addition of Saudi and Iran.
A high-level gathering of Gulf Arab states and Iranian officials is to take place later this year in Beijing with all parties agreeing not to use English in the negotiations, with speeches and documents conducted in Arabic, Farsi, or Mandarin.
The century-long US political/economic supremacy is being challenged as never before. And in truth, the current US administration does not have any clue how to respond. That fact makes the situation more dangerous.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.