The foreign policy of the United States is the way in which it interacts with foreign nations and sets standards of interaction for its organizations, corporations and individual citizens. The global reach of the United States is backed by a $15 trillion economy, approximately a quarter of global GDP, and a defense budget of $711 billion, which accounts for approximately 43% of global military spending. The U.S. Secretary of State is analogous to the foreign minister of other nations and is the official charged with state-to-state diplomacy, although the president has ultimate authority over foreign policy; that policy includes defining the national interest, as well as the strategies chosen both to safeguard that and to achieve its policy goals. The current Secretary of State is Hillary Clinton.
The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States, as mentioned in the Foreign Policy Agenda of the U.S. Department of State, are "to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community." In addition, the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs states as some of its jurisdictional goals: "export controls, including nonproliferation of nuclear technology and nuclear hardware; measures to foster commercial intercourse with foreign nations and to safeguard American business abroad; international commodity agreements; international education; and protection of American citizens abroad and expatriation." U.S. foreign policy and foreign aid have been the subject of much debate, praise and criticism both domestically and abroad.
When asked if the WikiLeaks of 2010 would damage American relations with other countries, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted that "governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets."
Read more about Foreign Policy Of The United States: Powers of The President and Congress, Historical Overview, Law, Foreign Aid, Military, Covert Actions, Human Rights, War On Drugs, Criticism, Support
Famous quotes containing the words united states, foreign policy, foreign, policy, united and/or states:
“I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A régime which invented a biological foreign policy was obviously acting against its own best interests. But at least it obeyed its own particular logic.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Friends, both the imaginary ones you build for yourself out of phrases taken from a living writer, or real ones from college, and relatives, despite all the waste of ceremony and fakery and the fact that out of an hour of conversation you may have only five minutes in which the old entente reappears, are the only real means for foreign ideas to enter your brain.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)
“In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection, I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)