Foreign Policy

Foreign policy encompasses the strategies, alliances, and tools the United States uses to advance its interests and values abroad. Congress plays a significant role: it must approve treaties, authorize military force, fund foreign aid, confirm ambassadors, and can impose sanctions. The executive branch — the president, State Department, and National Security Council — leads day-to-day diplomacy. American foreign policy since World War II has been broadly internationalist: the U.S. helped build NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the international monetary system, and has maintained a global military presence. That consensus has frayed significantly since 2016, with a growing 'America First' strain that questions the value of alliances, multilateral institutions, and foreign aid. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine tested the Western alliance's cohesion and triggered the largest European land war in decades; U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine has been a central foreign policy debate since. China's rise as an economic and military competitor is the defining strategic challenge of the era — shaping debate over Taiwan, technology exports, South China Sea territorial disputes, and economic decoupling. The Middle East — particularly U.S. relationships with Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — remains a perpetual focal point. Foreign aid, which amounts to less than 1 percent of the federal budget, is often misunderstood by the public but has significant consequences for American influence and global stability.