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Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 11, 2017

Spicer: Trump’s foreign policy is still ‘America first’

President Donald Trump’s foreign policy doctrine is still “America first,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer declared Monday.

Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria on Thursday in response to Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime using chemical weapons on civilians early last week. Trump’s move was a decisive but perplexing action for a president who campaigned on putting America first and as a private citizen advised President Barack Obama to seek congressional approval before potentially bombing Syria, which he suggested in 2013 would result in “more debt and a possible long term conflict.”

“I think the Trump doctrine is something that he articulated throughout the campaign, which is that America’s first,” Spicer told reporters, cautioning that the U.S. won’t “become the world policeman” but will make sure the nation’s economic and security interests are protected.

Asked how to square Trump’s America-first policy with his military action targeting the airbase where U.S. intelligence believes the Syrian regime’s chemical attack originated, Spicer cast the potential proliferation of chemical weapons as a national security threat.

“I think if you recognize the threat that our country and our people face if there is a growth of use or spread of chemical weapons of mass destruction, those, the proliferation of those, the spread to other groups, is a clear danger to our country and to our people,” he said. (Source: Politico)