Isolationism in American Foreign Policy

Abstract

With the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States and his slogan: “America first”, a new era of foreign politics was predicted, an era of isolationism. America’s foreign policy in the 1920s was marked as isolationist as well. But to what extent was the United States of America in the twenties of the twentieth century isolationist in their foreign policy? To establish an answer, I defined the term isolationism, and I have focused on three main themes: institutes, the peace movement and international justice. To use the three characteristics of isolationism, unilateralism, abstention, and non-interventionism, it became clearer as to how the United States positioned itself in world politics. The international foreign policy of the United States in the 1920s was neither entirely isolationist nor entirely internationalist. This study made clear that the US-government operated in different situations differently, taking into account what was thought to be feasible in a specific situation.