“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” 

– President Thomas Jefferson

Libertarians favor a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. U.S. troops should be here to protect this country. Instead, there are 170,000 U. S. troops stationed in 150 different countries around the globe (out of 193 total countries) — in the Middle East, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. Libertarians would bring all the troops home and advise other countries to pay for their own defense. We should not be involved in alliances like NATO.

Our nation should be the beacon of freedom and liberty in the world, like we were for the first 150 years of our independence.  That’s not how much of the world thinks of us now, due to our misguided desire to be the world’s policeman. It is our long record of violent involvement in the Middle East that’s the main problem — from the 1991 Gulf War, to the occupation of Afghanistan, to the 2003 Iraq war and occupation, to trying to pick sides in the Syrian Civil War, to supporting Saudi Arabia’s war against a faction in Yemen.  Our troops, our bombs, our drone strikes, and our meddling have created more terrorists every year.

I will vote against any and all military appropriations that would keep our troops in these foreign assignments.  The only way to really support our troops is to stop sending them to places where they have no business going.

Additionally, our government currently gives $57 billion of our tax dollars to 164 countries for foreign aid.  Some of the aid is military and some is humanitarian, but it is primarily the transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to the elite of other countries. I will work to end all foreign aid payments.