NASHVILLE - Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., today offered praise for GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's foreign policy address with the lawmaker saying he hopes to hear more.
"Today, Donald Trump delivered a very good foreign policy speech in which he laid out his vision for American engagement in the world," said Corker in a statement. "I look forward to hearing more details, but in a year where angry rhetoric has defined the presidential race on both sides of the aisle, it is my hope that candidates in both parties will begin focusing not only on the problems we face but on solutions."
U. S. Senator Bob Corker meets with members of the Chattanooga Time Free Press editorial board Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn.Corker added that "I believe today's speech could be an important step in that direction."
Earlier today in his first major foreign policy address in Washington, Trump outlined his views saying they aim at putting "America first."
"It's time to shake the rust off America's foreign policy," Trump said according to a transcript posted on Time Magazine's website. "It's time to invite new voices and new visions into the fold, something we have to do."
But Trump also said his vision will "return us to a timeless principle. My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else. It has to be first. Has to be. That will be the foundation of every single decision that I will make. America first will be the major and overriding theme of my administration."
American foreign policy, Trump said, veered off track following the end of the Cold War era.
"In fact, as time went on, our foreign policy began to make less and less sense. Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, which led to one foreign policy disaster after another," Trump said, going on to cite Iraq, Egypt, Lybia and Syria.
Calling current U.S. policy a "complete and total disaster, " Trump said it has "no vision. No purpose. No direction. No strategy" and went on to identify what he called "five main weaknesses."
Those include over-extending U.S. resources and American allies not paying their "fair share" toward assisting costly U.S. military burdens, Trump said. NATO countries must do more, he added.
Moreover, Trump argued, traditional U.S. allies are "beginning to think they can't depend on us." Meanwhile, U.S. "rivals no longer respect us." He went on to lambaste both President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. Secretary of State, for many of the problems.