>> Continued From the Previous Page <<
Clinton didn’t stop there. She laid bare her worldview in one simple, revealing line:
“I want to see us involved everywhere, trying to stop the kind of horrible abuses that are going on.”²
Everywhere. Not selectively. Not strategically. Simply everywhere.
She further criticized Trump for “taking a very big turn away from the kind of alliances that have been the hallmark of our foreign policy”³ and labeled his strategy an “abdication of leadership”⁴ on the world stage.
But Trump’s approach is intentionally different. It ends the disastrous interventionist policies that left Libya a terrorist haven, armed Syrian rebels who later joined ISIS, and cost thousands of American lives across endless Middle Eastern conflicts—the very policies Hillary Clinton championed.
Clinton’s Track Record of Foreign Policy Failures
Clinton’s disdain for Trump’s America First strategy isn’t surprising—it directly repudiates her own foreign policy legacy.
In 2011, she spearheaded U.S. military intervention in Libya, lobbying President Obama to support rebel militias and authorize airstrikes.⁵ Following Gaddafi’s death, Clinton celebrated on camera, famously saying, “We came, we saw, he died.”⁶
The aftermath was catastrophic. Libya descended into chaos, becoming a breeding ground for ISIS outside Syria and Iraq.⁷ The 2012 Benghazi attack, which claimed four American lives including Ambassador Chris Stevens, unfolded in the unstable Libya Clinton helped create. Even Obama called the lack of post-Gaddafi planning “the worst mistake” of his presidency.⁸
She also pushed for arming Syrian rebels to overthrow Assad, working with CIA Director David Petraeus to establish covert programs.⁹ The U.S. spent over half a billion dollars on training programs, but only a few dozen rebels reached the battlefield before being overtaken by Islamist extremists.¹⁰ Weapons often ended up with al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra Front.¹¹
Clinton’s response? More intervention. More involvement. More of what failed spectacularly.¹²
Trump’s America First Approach: Focused, Strategic, Effective
In stark contrast, Trump’s National Security Strategy breaks with decades of bipartisan interventionism. It rejects “permanent American domination of the entire world” as “fundamentally undesirable and impossible.”¹³ Instead, it prioritizes protecting the homeland, strengthening trade, and resolving conflicts through diplomacy rather than endless wars.
The strategy has already produced tangible results: facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, bringing Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, and resolving multiple regional disputes through dealmaking rather than bombings.¹⁴
While Trump acknowledges that “rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible,” he sets “a high bar for what constitutes a justified intervention.”¹⁵ That’s a stark contrast to Clinton’s “everywhere” doctrine, which sends troops and resources into conflicts without considering American interests or consequences.
Trump’s focus on the Western Hemisphere—protecting the southern border and combating drug cartels—further irritates interventionists, who want America entrenched in conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, Congo, and beyond. Trump wants Americans first.
The American people made their choice clear. By electing Trump in a landslide, they rejected Hillary Clinton’s failed interventionist model and chose peace through strength—protecting U.S. interests without blindly sending soldiers into endless foreign conflicts. Clinton’s vision of being involved “everywhere” has left behind failed states, countless American deaths, and trillions of taxpayer dollars squandered.
