I’ll cut up an article here:

MSN / New York Times, ‘Donald Trump Plays Down Role of U.S. in Global Crises’, 21 Jul 2016:

CLEVELAND — Donald J. Trump, on the eve of accepting the Republican nomination for president, said Wednesday that if he were elected, he would not pressure Turkey or other authoritarian allies about conducting purges of their political adversaries or cracking down on civil liberties. The United States, he said, has to “fix our own mess” before trying to alter the behavior of other nations.

Interesting!

[...] “This is not 40 years ago,” Mr. Trump said, rejecting comparisons of his approaches to law-and-order issues and global affairs to Richard Nixon’s. Reiterating his threat to pull back United States troops deployed around the world, he said, “We are spending a fortune on military in order to lose $800 billion,” citing what he called America’s trade losses. “That doesn’t sound very smart to me.”

Mr. Trump repeatedly defined American global interests almost purely in economic terms. Its roles as a peacekeeper, as a provider of a nuclear deterrent against adversaries like North Korea, as an advocate of human rights and as a guarantor of allies’ borders were each quickly reduced to questions of economic benefit to the United States.

This is really one of the most remarkable things about Trump. The most remarkable thing about him is that he says directly what other American leaders have cunningly masked all along. In that sense, Trump is not a fundamental change in America’s behaviour, he is more like America without the mask on, and with a different set of priorities.

Whereas previously, America was interested in encircling and enclosing Russia to prevent its expansion in the post-Soviet space, the elements of America that are now more interested in enclosing China are making Trump into their vehicle.

[...] Mr. Trump’s discussion of the crisis in Turkey was telling, because it unfolded at a moment in which he could plainly imagine himself in the White House, handling an uprising that could threaten a crucial ally in the Middle East. The United States has a major air base at Incirlik in Turkey, where it carries out attacks on the Islamic State and keeps a force of drones and about 50 nuclear weapons.

Mr. Trump had nothing but praise for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s increasingly authoritarian but democratically elected leader. “I give great credit to him for being able to turn that around,” Mr. Trump said of the coup attempt on Friday night. “Some people say that it was staged, you know that,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

Trump is now Turkey. Erdogan is now America.

[...] Asked if Mr. Erdogan was exploiting the coup attempt to purge his political enemies, Mr. Trump did not call for the Turkish leader to observe the rule of law, or Western standards of justice. “When the world sees how bad the United States is and we start talking about civil liberties, I don’t think we are a very good messenger,” he said.

The Obama administration has refrained from any concrete measures to pressure Turkey, fearing for the stability of a crucial ally in a volatile region. But Secretary of State John F. Kerry has issued several statements urging Mr. Erdogan to follow the rule of law.

Donald Trump is in complete agreement with the Obama Administration on this issue. The only difference is a minor difference in rhetoric.

[...] Mr. Trump said he was convinced that he could persuade Mr. Erdogan to put more effort into fighting the Islamic State. But the Obama administration has run up, daily, against the reality that the Kurds — among the most effective forces the United States is supporting against the Islamic State — are being attacked by Turkey, which fears they will create a breakaway nation.

Asked how he would solve that problem, Mr. Trump paused, then said: “Meetings.”

Translation: He will do nothing.

[...] Ousting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, he said, was a far lower priority than fighting the Islamic State — a conclusion the White House has also reached, but has not voiced publicly.

“Assad is a bad man,” Mr. Trump said. “He has done horrible things.” But the Islamic State, he said, poses a far greater threat to the United States.

Trump is actually lying here. Trump has previously said that he would deliberately allow ISIL to do maximum damage to the Syrian government, because that is in the American national interest, which he considers to be more important than coordinating with global stakeholders.

[...] He said he had consulted two former Republican secretaries of state, James A. Baker III and Henry Kissinger, saying he had gained “a lot of knowledge,” but did not describe any new ideas about national security that they had encouraged him to explore.

Donald Trump is reverse-Nixon, that’s all you need to know.

[...]

“To me, ‘America First’ is a brand-new, modern term,” he said. “I never related it to the past.”

He paused a moment when asked what it meant to him.

“We are going to take care of this country first,” he said, “before we worry about everyone else in the world.”

Well, there it is.