{"id":41501,"date":"2026-01-11T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=41501"},"modified":"2026-02-08T07:29:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:29:37","slug":"george-washingtons-foreign-policy-was-built-on-respect-for-other-nations-and-patient-consideration-of-future-burdens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/george-washingtons-foreign-policy-was-built-on-respect-for-other-nations-and-patient-consideration-of-future-burdens\/","title":{"rendered":"George Washington\u2019s foreign policy was built on respect for other nations and patient consideration of future burdens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maurizio Valsania<\/a>, Universit\u00e0 di Torino<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign policy is usually discussed as a matter of national interests \u2013 oil flows, borders, treaties, fleets. But there is a problem: \u201cnational interest\u201d is an inherently ambiguous phrase<\/a>. Although it is often presented as an expression of sheer force, its effectiveness ultimately rests on something softer \u2013 the manner in which a government performs moral authority and projects credibility to the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The style of that performance is part of the substance, not just its packaging. On Jan. 4, 2026, on ABC\u2019s This Week<\/a>, that style shifted abruptly for the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to explain President Donald Trump\u2019s declaration that \u201cthe United States is going to run Venezuela<\/a>.\u201d Under what authority, Stephanopoulos asked, could such a claim possibly stand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio dodged the question. He just said that the United States would enact \u201ca quarantine on their oil.\u201d Venezuela\u2019s economy would remain frozen, unable \u201cto move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interests of the Venezuelan people are met<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio\u2019s point presumed authority rather than pausing to justify it. It was a diplomacy of dominance \u2013 coercion dressed up as concern. The unspoken assumption was pure wishful thinking: that \u201cnational interest\u201d would immediately prevail, flowing smoothly in all directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a historian of the early republic and the author of a biography of George Washington<\/a>, I\u2019ve been reminded these days of how Washington \u2013 amid harsh storms unlike anything the country faces today \u2013 forged a vision that treated restraint, not self-justifying unilateralism, as the truest measure of American national interest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acknowledging burdens and consequences<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the 1790s, the United States faced a world ruled by corsairs and kings. The Atlantic was not yet<\/a> an American lake. Spain blocked its western river<\/a>, the Mississippi. Britain still held forts on U.S. soil<\/a>. Revolutionary France tried to recruit American passions<\/a> for European wars. And in North Africa, petty \u201cRegencies<\/a>,\u201d as Europe politely called them, seized American ships at will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young nation was humiliated before it was strong. George Washington understood that humiliation intimately. Independence had freed America from Britain, but not from the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWould to Heaven we had a navy,\u201d he confessed to the Marquis de Lafayette in 1786, longing for ships \u201cto reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into nonexistence<\/a>.\u201d But such a fierce wish never became Washington\u2019s foreign policy. Visibility invited peril; peril required composure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1785, two American merchant vessels \u2013 the Maria of Boston and the Dauphin of Philadelphia<\/a> \u2013 were captured by Algerian cruisers. Twenty-one sailors were chained, stripped and sold into slavery. Their families begged the government to pay ransom. Negotiators proposed paying tribute<\/a>, a kind of protection-in-advance payment system. The price kept rising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Washington refused to be rushed by either pity or anger. Paying the extravagant sum, he warned his cabinet in 1789, \u201cmight establish a precedent which would always operate and be very burthensome if yielded to<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precedent mattered to Washington. A republic must measure not only what it can afford, but what it will be forced to feel tomorrow because of what it pays today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s approach to Venezuela demonstrates the opposite instinct. It represents a readiness to take unprecedented steps without pausing to acknowledge their burden and consequences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington feared that habit of nearsightedness in foreign affairs precisely because he believed it corrupted empires \u2013 and could corrupt republics as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neutrality as \u2018emotional discipline\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The storms soon multiplied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1793, Europe was already \u201cpregnant with great events<\/a>,\u201d Washington wrote to Lafayette. The French Revolution, welcomed at first as a triumph of \u201cThe Rights of Man<\/a>,\u201d slid into terror and general war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citizen Genet<\/a>, the French envoy to the United States, landed in Charleston, South Carolina, and proceeded to enlist American citizens\u2019 help in France\u2019s war with Britain by commissioning privateers in U.S. ports to prey on British ships. Genet did not request permission to do this from Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gratitude to France \u2013 indispensable ally during the Revolution, provider of fleets, soldiers and hard-to-forget loans \u2013 clashed with alarm at her new demands. A single misstep could have dragged the United States into another catastrophic conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, Washington responded to Genet not with rashness and bravado but with restraint made public law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality insisted that the \u201cduty and interest of the United States\u201d required \u201ca conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers<\/a>.\u201d Neutrality was an emotional discipline \u2013 the only source of authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friendliness: strategy, not concession<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

President Washington knew that the road to successful pursuit of national interests was paved with international credibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington wanted America \u201cto be little heard of in the great world of Politics,\u201d preferring instead \u201cto exchange Commodities & live in peace & amity with all the inhabitants of the earth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first president pitched the republic\u2019s voice toward ordinary people rather than rival powers. He spoke of \u201cinhabitants,\u201d not foreign enemies. He treated restraint \u2013 not self-justifying unilateralism \u2013 as the truest measure of national interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
At his presidency\u2019s end, George Washington wrote to fellow statesman Gouverneur Morris, \u2018My policy has been, and will continue\u2026 to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth.\u2019 Library of Congress<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even when insulted or thwarted \u2013 by Spanish intrigues on the Florida frontier<\/a>, by British seizures in the Caribbean<\/a>, by pamphleteers accusing him of being a monarch in disguise<\/a> \u2013 Washington\u2019s tone remained measured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 4, 1797, he would leave the presidency. His final creed was simple and devout: \u201cMy policy has been, and will continue \u2026 to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Washington, friendliness was a strategy, not a concession. The republic would treat other nations with civility precisely in order to remain independent of their appetites and quarrels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign policy as civic mirror<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The statements from the Trump administration about Venezuela revive habits Washington once deplored: sovereignty managed through fear<\/a>, pressure enforced by economic asphyxiation<\/a>, domination smoothed over with promises of kindness<\/a>. In this performance, U.S. interests function as a blank check, and restraint appears obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet foreign policy has never been only a ledger of advantage<\/a>. It is also a civic mirror: the emotional register of a government that tells citizens what kind of nation is acting in their name, and whether it tries to balance national interest with responsibilities to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington believed America\u2019s legitimacy abroad depended on patience and respect for the autonomy of others. The current approach to Caracas announces a different imagination: a power that boasts of quarantines, sets conditions \u2013 and calls the result partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A republic must still defend its interests. But I believe it should also defend the temperament that made those interests compatible with independence in the first place. Washington\u2019s America learned to stand among stronger powers without demanding to run them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question asked on \u201cThis Week,\u201d then, is only the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deeper question remains whether the United States will continue to perform power with the discipline of a constitutional republic \u2013 or surrender that discipline to the easy allure of what seems to only serve national interest, but fails to build credibility or relationships that endure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maurizio Valsania<\/a>, Professor of American History, Universit\u00e0 di Torino<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maurizio Valsania, Universit\u00e0 di Torino Foreign policy is usually discussed as a matter of national interests \u2013 oil flows, borders, treaties, fleets. But there is a problem: \u201cnational interest\u201d is an inherently ambiguous phrase. Although it is often presented as an expression of sheer force, its effectiveness ultimately rests on something softer \u2013 the manner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":41502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8025,277,46,295,10,25,296,36,4],"tags":[2748,16968,17352,885,891,886,860,478,17351,17350,17340],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41501"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41713,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41501\/revisions\/41713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}