The Virtues of Patriotism
25th May 2019
For more than a half a century, the United States automatically has supported more European integration and opposed efforts to reassert national sovereignty. As recently as 2016, President Obama traveled to the United Kingdom to warn the British that as far as America was concerned, they would be sent to the “back of the queue,” if they dared to approve Brexit. In contrast, then-private citizen John Bolton remarked,“Americans should welcome Britain’s coming Declaration of Independence.”
With the advent of the Trump Administration, automatic support for continued EU centralization and reflexive opposition to national sovereignty has ended. Pompeo, speaking directly to the Europeans in Brussels, forthrightly declared: “Our mission is to reassert sovereignty, reform the liberal international order, and we want our friends to help us assert their sovereignty as well.”