What do religious traditions and constitutional principles say about an "America First" doctrine — when does putting your nation first cross into something different?
Putting your own people first is a duty every government and every faith tradition affirms. Treating other peoples as enemies, instruments, or obstacles whose suffering doesn't matter is something different — and every major religious tradition warns against it. The Constitution assumes America will engage with the world; the Founders simply insisted that the engagement be deliberated, not dictated. The honest question about "America First" is not whether to prioritize Americans (yes) but whether the policies pursued in its name still recognize that other people exist as people, and whether they still respect the constitutional structure that prevents one person from running American foreign policy alone.
Religious perspectives
Every nation has a duty to its own people. Religious traditions affirm that — and warn about what happens when that duty becomes the only duty.
Christianity: Jesus was asked "Who is my neighbor?" and answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) — choosing as moral hero a foreigner from a despised group. The deliberate point: the obligation to love does not stop at borders. The early church ministered to "the household of faith" first, but "to all people" too (Galatians 6:10). Putting your own family first is natural; saying others don't count is the sin Jesus exposed.
Judaism: "Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" appears 36 times in the Torah — more than any other commandment. The prophet Jonah is rebuked by God for hoping that the foreign city of Nineveh would be destroyed. Jewish tradition holds that a people called to be "a light to the nations" (Isaiah 49:6) cannot claim that only their own light matters.
Islam: "O mankind, We created you from a male and a female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another" (Quran 49:13). Tribes and nations exist for mutual recognition, not domination. The Prophet Muhammad said "There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab; nor of a white person over a black person, nor of a black person over a white person, except by piety."
Catholic Social Teaching: Successive popes — including Pope Francis and his predecessors — have warned against economic and political nationalism that treats other peoples as obstacles or instruments. The principle of "solidarity" holds that nations are interdependent, and pretending otherwise is a moral error, not just a strategic one.
The honest distinction: "America First" can mean (1) prioritizing the wellbeing of your own citizens — which religious traditions affirm — or (2) treating other nations as enemies, instruments, or obstacles whose suffering doesn't matter. The first is duty. The second is the warning every prophetic tradition has issued.
Constitutional & legal framework
The Founders thought carefully about America's relationship with the rest of the world — and their views are more complex than the slogan "America First" suggests.
Washington's Farewell Address (1796): Often invoked to justify isolationism, but Washington's actual counsel was more nuanced: "Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all... It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a People always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence."
The Declaration of Independence: Begins with "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" — a recognition that America is accountable to a broader moral community, not only to itself.
Article I and II: Treaties require Senate consent. Trade is regulated by Congress. Wars are declared by Congress. The Founders built a structure assuming that international engagement would be normal — and that it would be checked by deliberation, not driven by one person's will.
The post-WWII order: The United States led the construction of the United Nations, NATO, the Bretton Woods institutions, and a rules-based trading system. This was not charity — it served American interests by preventing the kind of great-power conflicts that had killed tens of millions. Walking away from those institutions has consequences both for global stability and for American leadership in shaping what comes next.
The current debate (2025-2026): "America First" in practice has included: (1) tariffs on allies (Canada, Mexico, EU, Denmark) — many imposed under emergency powers Congress has not authorized for this purpose; (2) threats to acquire foreign territory (Greenland, Panama Canal); (3) withdrawal or threatened withdrawal from international organizations; (4) demands that allies pay more for shared defense. Some of these reflect legitimate negotiation. Others — like threats of force against allies — break with the constitutional structure that places war powers and treaty-making in joint hands.
The structural question: An "America First" doctrine implemented through executive order, emergency tariffs, and unilateral threats consolidates foreign policy in the presidency in ways the Founders deliberately resisted. Whatever one thinks of the policy goals, the constitutional question is whether the means used to pursue them respect the separation of powers.
See: Washington's Farewell Address → | Article II, §2 (Treaty Clause) →
Sources cited:BibleQuranConstitutionDeclaration