entangling alliances with none

1. A phrase President Thomas Jefferson used in his first inaugural address in 1801, calling for a cautious, isolationist foreign policy. (See isolationism.)

George Washington had given similar isolationist advice four years earlier in his Farewell Address: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”

Example Sentences

Four years later in his inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson described the goals of U.S. international relations as “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

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Jefferson’s entreaty, in his first inaugural address, to seek “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” is another favorite of today’s isolationists.

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Many people note Thomas Jefferson’s warning that the United States should pursue “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none,” taking that as the defining strategy of the founders.

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We should pay heed to that often quoted call by Thomas Jefferson, “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.”

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Friendly relations with all, but entangling alliances with none, is declared to be our policy.

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