Donald Trump’s rambling, racist, and mendacious speech to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland today brings agony and shame to us patriotic Americans. In mocking other leaders, denigrating NATO, and continuing his push to acquire Greenland by extortion, the worst President ever put a huge exclamation point on America’s abandonment of its allies and its values.
To see how badly Republicans have betrayed America by tolerating Donald Trump’s brazen crusade for personal power, let’s look at the principles President Ronald Reagan listed in 1984 as the practical pillars of American foreign policy:
All Americans share two great goals for foreign policy: a safer world, and a world in which individual rights can be respected and precious values may flourish. These goals are at the heart of America’s traditional idealism and our aspirations for world peace. Yet, while cherished by us, they do not belong exclusively to us. They’re not made in America. They’re shared by people everywhere.
Tragically, the world in which these fundamental goals are so widely shared is a very troubled world. While we and our allies may enjoy peace and prosperity, many citizens of the industrial world continue to live in fear of conflict and the threat of nuclear war. And all around the globe terrorists threaten innocent people and civilized values. And in developing countries, the dreams of human progress have too often been lost to violent revolution and dictatorship.
Quite obviously the widespread desire for a safer and more humane world is, by itself, not enough to create such a world. In pursuing our worthy goals, we must go beyond honorable intentions and good will to practical means.
We must be guided by these key principles:
Realism—the world is not as we wish it would be. Reality is often harsh. We will not make it less so, if we do not first see it for what it is.
Strength—we know that strength alone is not enough, but without it there can be no effective diplomacy and negotiations, no secure democracy and peace. Conversely, weakness or hopeful passivity are only self-defeating. They invite the very aggression and instability that they would seek to avoid.
Now, economic growth—this is the underlying base that ensures our strength and permits human potential to flourish. Neither strength nor creativity can be achieved or sustained without economic growth, both at home and abroad.
Intelligence—our policies cannot be effective unless the information on which they’re based is accurate, timely, and complete.
Shared responsibility with allies—our friends and allies share the heavy responsibility for the protection of freedom. We seek and need their partnership, sharing burdens in pursuit of our common goals.
Nonaggression—we have no territorial ambitions. We occupy no foreign lands. We build our strength only to assure deterrence and to secure our interests if deterrence fails.
Dialog with adversaries—though we must be honest in recognizing fundamental differences with our adversaries, we must always be willing to resolve these differences by peaceful means.
Bipartisanship at home—in our two-party democracy, an effective foreign policy must begin with bipartisanship, and the sharing of responsibility for a safer and more humane world must begin at home [President Ronald Reagan, remarks at the National Leadership Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 1984.04.06].
Trump said today the United States has gotten “absolutely nothing” from NATO, a pretext he has cooked up to mask his ego-driven, anti-American, and anti-Reaganesque territorial ambitions. Trump ignores history and reality; President Reagan did not, and explained in 1988 what we gain from this great alliance:
The Atlantic alliance is the core of America’s foreign policy and of America’s own security. Preservation of a peaceful, free, and democratic Europe is essential to the preservation of a peaceful, free, and democratic United States. If our fellow democracies are not secure, we cannot be secure. If you are threatened, we’re threatened. If you’re not at peace, we cannot be at peace. An attack on you is an attack on us. This is not simply a matter of treaty language, important as treaty language is. It is an enduring reality — as enduring as the reality that a threat to the security of the State of Maine or New York or California is a threat to the security of all 50 American States. Simply put: An attack on Munich is the same as an attack on Chicago.
We Americans did not come easily or willingly to the lesson of how closely America’s peace and freedom are tied to Europe’s. We had a tradition dating back to President Washington of avoiding permanent alliances. And yet twice in this century when peace and freedom were under siege in Europe, one way or another, we found ourselves part of the struggle. At the end of the Second World War, we hoped that peace, freedom, and democracy were at last secure in Europe forever. Even though the United States had a monopoly for a number of years on nuclear weapons, we did not seek to exploit the advantage for territorial or any other kind of gain. We went home, took off our uniforms, put on our civilian clothes, and got back to the normal life with our families and our communities. Europeans often say that we Americans are naive. Well, four decades ago, perhaps we were.
Soon we learned that the postwar world was not to be as we, through all those years of fighting, had prayed it would be. We watched with growing apprehension and dismay as the Soviet Union turned its back on the commitment made at Yalta to conduct free and open elections in Eastern Europe. Throughout Eastern Europe, the Red Army remained a fully mobilized army of occupation. And there were attempts to subvert the democracies of Western Europe and then the Soviet adventure in Greece, not unlike what the Soviets are doing today in Central America.
As Western Europe, with help from our Marshall plan, rebuilt, all our nations began to face the nature of the Soviet threat to the democracies. And so, beginning with the Brussels treaty in 1948, which established the Western European Union, and then the North Atlantic treaty 1 year later, which included Canada and the United States as well as other European nations, we drew together for our common safety and peace. As President Harry Truman said when he signed the North Atlantic treaty: Through this partnership “we seek to establish freedom from aggression and from the use of force in the North Atlantic community.” And he added: “This is the area which has been at the heart of the last two world conflicts. To protect this area against war will be a long step toward permanent peace in the whole world.”
Well, peace has been the alliance’s goal, the purpose of its forces and its strategies. And for almost 40 years, peace has been its achievement — an unprecedented period of European peace in which we in the democracies have lived in freedom and prospered. NATO’s strategy for peace has always been simple: Prevent aggression before it starts. Be strong enough, be determined enough so that no adversary would think even for a moment that war might pay.
…I mentioned earlier what President Truman said when he signed the North Atlantic treaty. On that occasion he also noted, speaking of the alliance, that “we are like a group of householders, living in the same locality, who decide to express their community of interests by entering into a formal association for their mutual protection.” During the past four decades we in the alliance have, if anything, grown even closer together.
Today, in a sense, we live not simply in the same locality but in a single house, a house that may someday include all of mankind among its residents: the house of democracy. “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” In the house of democracy are many languages and many national heritages, but one ideal: the dignity of man, or as Abraham Lincoln said, the belief that “no man is good enough to govern another without that other’s consent.” All of us honor this truth. All of us are united in defending it. We have raised high the roof beam of this great structure of an alliance to shelter that truth from all the winds that blow and all the bears and wolves that prowl.
Yes, the Atlantic community is the house of democracy. The Atlantic alliance is the guardian of Europe’s greatest legacy to the ages — human freedom and democratic rule. This is the challenge before the alliance now: to remain strong so that generations to come will know peace and freedom just as we do [President Ronald Reagan, radio speech from the White House, addressed to the citizens of Western Europe, 1988.02.23].
Trump expanded on his pretext for acquiring Greenland (or is it Iceland now? or Iceland too?) by saying NATO wouldn’t help the United States if attacked:
But now what I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection. It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades. But the problem with NATO is that, we’ll be there for them 100%, but I’m not sure that they be there for us. If we gave them the call, ‘Gentlemen, we are being attacked. We’re under attack by such and such a nation.’ I know them all very well, I’m not sure that they’d be there. I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us. So, with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat and tears, I don’t know that they’d be there for us. They’re not there for us on Iceland [sic], that I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland [sic] [Donald Trump, speech to World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, 2026.01.21].
In 2008, President George W. Bush explained how NATO helped the United States after the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington:
NATO nations recognize that the attacks were part of a broader ideological struggle. The terrorists who struck America that day murdered the innocent in pursuit of a violent political vision. They despise the principles of decency and humanity that are the very foundation of our Alliance. They want to impose their brutal rule on millions across the world. They attack our countries and target our people because we stand for freedom — and because we hold the power to stop them from achieving their murderous ambitions.
NATO nations recognized that this unprecedented attack required unprecedented action. For the first time in the history of the Alliance, Article Five of the NATO Treaty was invoked. NATO aircraft were soon flying over the United States to provide early warning in case of a follow-on attack. Many NATO nations — including the United Kingdom and France, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey — deployed forces to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and to drive the Taliban from power.
Since then, NATO’s role in Afghanistan has expanded significantly. In 2003, NATO took over the International Security Assistance Force. And over time, this NATO mission has grown from a small force operating only in Kabul to a force of 47,000 that is now leading operations across all of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the most daring and ambition [sic] mission in the history of NATO. An Alliance that never fired a shot in the Cold War is now leading the fight on a key battleground of the first war in the 21st century. In Afghanistan, forces from NATO and many partner nations are bringing honor to their uniforms and pride to their countries.
As NATO forces fight the terrorists in Afghanistan they’re helping Afghans take increasing responsibility for their own security. With NATO’s help, the ranks of trained Afghan soldiers have grown from 33,000 last year to 55,000 today — and these brave Afghan forces are leading many important combat operations. Thanks to their courage, and the skill of NATO personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaeda is now a democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope.
Afghanistan still faces many difficult challenges. The enemy has been driven from its strongholds, and no longer controls a single Afghan city. But as this enemy has been defeated on the battlefield, they have turned increasingly to terrorist tactics such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs. And if we were to let up the pressure, the extremists would re-establish safe havens across the country, and use them to terrorize the people of Afghanistan and threaten our own. And that is why we’ll stay on the offense, and that is why we’ll keep the pressures on these radicals and extremists, and that is why we’ll succeed.
Terrorists used safe havens in Afghanistan to launch the 9/11 attacks. Since 9/11, al Qaeda terrorists around the world have succeeded in launching devastating attacks on allied cities such as Madrid and London and Istanbul. They planned more attacks on targets in Europe that never came to pass because of the vigilance of intelligence and law enforcement personnel from many of our nations. For example, in 2006 we stopped an al Qaeda plot to blow up passenger jets departing Europe for the United States. Earlier this year, Turkish authorities broke up an al Qaeda cell that was plotting a series of terrorist attacks in Turkey. This enemy remains dangerous. And that’s why our Alliance is so important to protecting innocent people [President George W. Bush, speech at National Bank of Savings in Bucharest, Romania, 2008.04.02].
Trump today dismissed the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a purely European problem of no concern to America:
What does the United States get out of all of this work, all of this money – other than death, destruction, and massive amounts of cash going to people who don’t appreciate what we do? They don’t appreciate what we do. I’m talking about NATO, I’m talking about Europe. They have to work on Ukraine, we don’t. The United States is very far away. We have a big, beautiful ocean separating us. We have nothing to do with it [Trump in Davos, 2026.01.21].
President Bush didn’t think that ocean separated our interests from Ukraine. President Bush said in that Bucharest speech that Ukraine and Georgia ought to be in NATO:
This week, our Alliance must also decide how to respond to the requests by Georgia and Ukraine to participate in NATO’s Membership Action Plan. These two nations inspired the world with their Rose and Orange Revolutions — and now they’re working to consolidate their democratic gains and cement their independence. Welcoming them into the MATO [sic] — into the Membership Action Plan would send a signal to their citizens that if they continue on the path to democracy and reform they will be welcomed into the institutions of Europe. It would send a signal throughout the region that these two nations are, and will remain, sovereign and independent states.
Here in Bucharest, we must make clear that NATO welcomes the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine for their membership in NATO and offers them a clear path forward to meet that goal. So my country’s position is clear: NATO should welcome Georgia and Ukraine into the Membership Action Plan. And NATO membership must remain open to all of Europe’s democracies that seek it, and are ready to share in the responsibilities of NATO membership [Bush in Bucharest, 2008.04.02].
(The Bush Center still says NATO should admit Ukraine.)
Amidst his threats, Trump said, “A strong and secure America means a strong NATO.” He got it exactly backwards from what Reagan, Bush, and every other sensible American policymaker of the last 80 years has recognized: a strong NATO means a strong and secure America. Our investment in NATO has paid off in unprecedented peace, progress, and prosperity for our nation and all of our global partners. It checked the Soviet Union and freed the nations they occupied to join the West in the march toward freedom. Trump’s distortion of history and extortion of Europe destroys the healthy world order that flowed from NATO and gives succor to our global foes and all forces of tyranny.
Trump is betraying our country out of pure, ignorant narcissism. The Republicans who leave him in power can feel only shame for betraying not only their party’s own heroes but the source of America’s true greatness: the promotion of its core values through robust, reliable alliances.