Bring back ‘ American values’ first

Donald Trump adopted the slogan "America First" during his 2016 and 2024 campaigns for the presidency. On January 20th, as he began his second term Trump unleashed his "America First Priorities".  He pledged to make "America Safe by securing US borders, deport migrants and suspend refugee resettlement.  He promised to "Make America Affordable and Energy Dominant Again" by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and reversing ex-president Joe Biden's regulations designed to cut emissions which cause climate change. He said he will reduce the cost of living and announce an "America First Trade Policy."  He vowed to reform and improve the government bureaucracy and hold bureaucrats accountable.  The State Department will have an "America First" foreign policy.  He says he plans to bring back "American values".

So far, he has stuck to this agenda by hustling migrants, deregulating oil and natural gas, and tackling the federal bureaucracy. He has also used the "America First" pretext to propose 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and Europe and raised tariffs on Chinese imports. Tariffs are certain to increase the cost of living for US citizens. His tariffs

have elicited tariffs on US exports, potentially driving up their prices. 

He has assumed control over his "America First" foreign policy by threatening to take over the Panama Canal, Canada and Denmark's Greenland. He claims that the Panama Canal is charging too much for US ships to use the waterway and that the US needs the natural resources of Canada and Greenland which is also a global strategic asset.  Panamanians, Canadians, and Greenlanders reject Trump's neo-colonial ambitions. Trump has distanced the US from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) created in the wake of World War II to provide a united Western front against external military aggression. While Trump has forced Europe to boost its armed forces to deter Russia and China, he has proclaimed the US is on its own.  This weakens rather than the US. 

On the regional level, Trump has given Israel a green light to prosecute its war on Gaza

and the West Bank.  This can only inflict enduring punishment on hapless Palestinians, deepen

Arab and Muslim hostility toward Israel and the US, and generate instability in the Middle East, North Africa and across the Muslim world.    

The term, "America First", invented in the 1850's by the US-focused American Party, has also been appropriated by Trump's predecessors. "America First" appeals to the lowest common denominator in that country's society as well as right-wingers, nationalists, white supremacists, isolationists, ideologues, and opportunists.  "America First" incorporates "American exceptionalism," the notion that the US is unique in human history and its system of governance is extraordinary and exemplary in comparison to systems in other countries. Consequently, according to proponents of "America First" and American "exceptionalism," the US is destined and entitled to lead in world affairs. 

This belief has not been borne out by US involvement in the affairs of others. in 1823,

US President James Monroe announced that efforts by European colonial powers th assert influence in North and South America would be seen as a threat to the US. The US had developed its defencesby the 20th century to not only enforce this doctrine but also negatively interfere in affairs of Central and South America by backing pro-US autocrats and promoting the overthrow of democratic and leftist governments.  

In 2014, Democrat President Woodrow Wilson used "America First" to justify US neutrality during World War I although US institutions leant large sums of money to Britain and France to boost their struggle against Germany and Austria.  As the US governmentbuilt up its

armed forces, 100,000 volunteered to fight. In 1916, Wilson won re-election and in March 2017, German submarine attacks on civilian shipping, which took US lives, compelled him to declare war on April 2nd.

"America First" was also adopted in the 1920 presidential campaign by Wilson's Republican successor, Warren Harding who took office in March 2021 and died of a heart attack in August 1923. Vice President Calvin Coolidge completed his term, won election in 

1924, having adopted "AmericaFirst."  The slogan represented the prevailing attitude of the country's white majority and resulted in the 1924 immigration act which cut the volume of immigrationby excluding immigrants from Asia.  Although Coolidge left office in 1929 his unregulated speculative investment policies were blamed for generating the Great 

Depression (1929-1932) which began with "America First" before embracingthe entire world.

In 1940, an isolationist lobby group founded the America First Committee (AFC) which opposed US involvement in World War II. The committee argued that no country dared attack a well defended US and that even if Britain was defeated by Nazi Germany, it would not engage the US.  The high-profile spokesman of the AFC was Charles Lindbergh, the man who first flew toAtlantic Ocean from the US to Europe.  Its members included industrialists, farmers, workers,Democrats and Republicans.  The AFC hampered Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his effort to aid Britain and its allies in their second war against Germany in 25 years.  The AFC was disbanded after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941.

The history of "America First" shows that the slogan has not generated policies that werepositive and successful but were instead harmful and futile.  Nevertheless, the Trump administration has reverted to "America First" at a time the world is already faced with overlapping political, economic and environmental crises.  "America First" can only make things worse.