The 2012 presidential campaign turned toward foreign policy this week, marked by speeches in which President Obama and Mitt Romney pointed out their differences, such as on Iran and China.
But their views are really quite similar in one significant way: Neither candidate put forth a national-security agenda that would inspire Americans to support a strong economy to fulfill that agenda. In fact, their foreign goals seem subordinate to simply fixing the US economy.
At the centerpiece of his approach, Mr. Romney proposes “prosperity pacts” to boost markets in other countries and thus create jobs at home. And Mr. Obama, who once said that “the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own,” takes a similar theme. He wants the United States to better partner with countries in such areas as trade and technology to “spark economic growth for all of our people” in hopes of stabilizing democratic change abroad.
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