The US has set its sights on Canada and Greenland, accused Europe of stifling free speech, and unleashed a trade war across the globe.
But Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday insisted that the Trump administration had ended a decades-long approach to foreign policy by no longer meddling in other countries’ affairs.
Speaking at the Naval Academy’s graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Vance hailed the president’s recent trip to the Middle East, which came under scrutiny over the acceptance of a 747 jet from the Qatar government, as a success.
But while he said most of the headlines focused elsewhere, the most striking part of the trip, according to Vance, was “the break from the precedent set by America’s founding fathers” and the “return to a strategy grounded in realism and protecting our core national interests.”
“We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defense and the maintenance of our alliances for nation building and meddling in foreign countries’ affairs – even when those foreign countries had very little to do with poor American interests,” the vice president told more than 1000 graduates.
“What we’re seeing from President Trump is a generational shift in policy with profound implications for the job that each and every one of you will be asked to do.”
Since taking office, Trump has sought to reduce American military involvement in foreign wars, but has not shied away from using US power to influence global affairs more broadly.
On Friday, for instance, he escalated his trade war with the European Union, threatening a 50 per cent tariff on goods.
“The European Union has been very difficult to deal with,” he posted on Truth Social.
“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”
It is not clear when the tariffs are likely to be enacted, or if Trump is simply using the threat as leverage.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the president gave mixed signals by saying: “I’m not looking for a deal. We’ve set the deal, it’s at 50%. But there’s no tariff if they build their plant here.”
In recent months, Trump has also set his sights on Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Panama Canal, a vital conduit for maritime trade between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.
He also spent months trolling Canada, insisting that the commonwealth should become America’s 51st state.
Vance, meanwhile, began his vice-presidency meddling in Europe’s business with a blistering address that accused its leaders of suppressing free speech and failing to tackle mass migration.
At the Naval Academy graduation today, he said America under Trump had shifted significantly.
“Now, this doesn’t mean that we ignore threats, but it means that we approach them with discipline and that when we send you to war, we do it with a very specific set of goals in mind,” he said.
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