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SALT LAKE CITY — What role does the United States have on the world stage?
It's a question in some ways at the center of two of the major debates taking place in Washington: border security and immigration, and military aid to foreign allies such as Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. With war raging in Ukraine and Taiwan facing threat of invasion by China, policymakers are wrestling between nearly a century of foreign policy with the U.S. at the center, and a recent isolationist streak in American politics that seeks to withdraw from exerting as much foreign influence.
The issue is something Republican Senate hopeful Brent Hatch would likely have to deal with should he win election this fall. And while he sees the U.S. as still having a strong role as a world leader, he said it's time to rely on other nations.
"The United States has always been ... and has always tried to be the leader in the world of foreign affairs and economic matters, and I think we should always be that," Hatch told the KSL and Deseret News editorial boards Monday afternoon. "Where we get in trouble is where we act as though we're the sole policemen for the world, and we don't share that responsibility."
Throughout the hourlong conversation, Hatch — the son of late Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah — expressed concern at the mounting national debt. When asked about aid to Ukraine and other allies, he tied it back to the nation's deficit and called on European countries to provide more military and economic aid to Ukraine, but said, "I think we need to defeat (Russian President Vladimir) Putin."
Hatch added that he believes more aid to Ukraine will embolden China to invade Taiwan, after China has conducted large-scale combat exercises around the island recently.
"My view is that (the European Union), they need to be putting into this war that's in their backyard as well, because right now we're borrowing money to do that," he said. "It's getting to be a real problem for us, and it causes us other problems because you've got President Xi (Jinping) over in China ... and he's looking at us and realizing that we're putting all this money there ... Xi is looking at this and realizing we're not replenishing our military capacity."
Foreign aid to Ukraine has been a sticking point between the White House and the Republican-led House of Representatives in recent months, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has recently suggested possible conditions for a deal on military assistance.
Hatch said he believes the U.S. is still a superpower on the world stage, but said "we have to start addressing some of these other problems that we have" before giving more money to Ukraine.
"I think we make a demand of Europe," he said when asked for the simplest explanation of his views on the issue. "You can base it on (gross domestic product), do whatever you feel you've got to do, but we can't be the only one doing it."
