Fundamentals of American Foreign Policy (1945) Harry S. Truman [President Truman delivered this speech just after his return from the Potsdam conference and in it continues to reflect, at the close of the greatest war in history, the American perspective through the prism of Wilsonian Idealism] . . . 1. We seek no territorial expansion or selfish advantage. We have no plans for aggression against any other state, large or small. We have no objective which need clash with the peaceful aims of any other nation. 2. We believe in the eventual return of sovereign rights and self-government to all peoples who have been deprived of them by force. 3. We shall approve no territorial changes in any friendly part of the world unless they accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned. 4. We believe that all peoples who are prepared for self-government should be permitted to choose their own form of government by their own freely expressed choice, without interference from any foreign source. That is true in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere. 5. By the combined and cooperative action of our war Allies, we shall help the defeated enemy states establish peaceful, democratic governments of their own free choice. And we shall try to attain a world in which Nazism, Fascism, and military aggression cannot exist. 6. We shall refuse to recognize any government imposed upon any nation by the force of any foreign power. In some cases it may be impossible to prevent forceful imposition of such a government. But the United States will not recognize any such government. 7. We believe that all nations should have the freedom of the seas and equal rights to the navigation of boundary rivers and waterways and of rivers and waterways which pass through more than one country. 8. We believe that all states which are accepted in the society of nations should have access on equal terms to the trade and the raw materials of the world. 9. We believe that the sovereign states of the Western Hemisphere, without interference from outside the Western Hemisphere, must work together as good neighbors in the solution of their common problems.10. We believe that full economic collaboration between all nations, great and small. is essential to the improvement of living conditions all over the world, and to the establishment of freedom from fear and freedom from want. 11. We shall continue to strive to promote freedom of expression and freedom of religion throughout the peace-loving areas of the world. 12. We are convinced that the preservation of peace between nations requires a United Nations Organization composed of all the peace-loving nations of the world who are willing jointly to use force if necessary to insure peace. That is the foreign policy which guides the United States now. That is the foreign policy with which it confidently faces the future. It may not be put into effect tomorrow or the next day. But none the less, it is our policy; and we shall seek to achieve it. It may take a long time, but it is worth waiting for, and it is worth striving to attain. . .
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