Gregory Korte

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Theodore Roosevelt famously described his foreign policy with the proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Donald Trump does not speak softly.

Delivering remarks from a prompter to keep him on script, the GOP presidential front-runner gave what was billed as a major foreign policy address Wednesday, attempting to tie together a series of blustery soundbites delivered at campaign rallies into a more cohesive foreign policy.

The result: 39 minutes of denunciations, platitudes and unbridled American exceptionalism, bound together with a swagger usually found only on sports radio or single-elimination television reality shows.

Obama's foreign policy, he said, was "reckless, rudderless and aimless."

"The legacy of the Obama-Clinton interventions will be weakness, confusion and disarray, a mess," he said. "It has been a complete and total disaster."

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But he proposed no real realignment of American interests, suggesting that he would continue many key tenets of foreign policy but simply execute them better than his predecessors.

It's a foreign policy ripped more from his 1987 business bestseller, The Art of the Deal, than the pages of Foreign Affairs.

"In negotiation, you must be willing to walk. The Iran deal, like so many of our worst agreements, is the result of not being willing to leave the table," he said, referring to the Iran nuclear deal. "When the other side knows you're not going to walk, it becomes absolutely impossible to win — you just can't win."

Trump would apply this principle not just to enemies and rivals but friends and allies. If European and Pacific allies don't pay their share of defense costs — as only a handful of NATO allies do — Trump said he would walk away from the 70-year-old alliance.

"The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense, and if not, the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves," he said. "We have no choice."

And he said he would drive a harder bargain with China. "We have the leverage. We have the power over China, economic power, and people don't understand it," he said.

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When he wasn't promising to make the rest of the world respect America again, he filled with truisms and non-sequiturs. He said he would never send troops into battle unless he had a "plan for victory with a capital V."

Appearing to ad-lib, he lamented that there are "too many destructive weapons. The power of weaponry is the single biggest problem that we have today in the world."

Rebuilding the military, he said, would be the "the cheapest single investment we can make."

"We will develop, build and purchase the best equipment known to mankind," he said. "Our military dominance must be unquestioned, and I mean unquestioned, by anybody and everybody."

The speech would leave most of the foreign policy establishment scratching their heads. But Trump has little use for the community of columnists, diplomats, think tank experts and television talking heads who define the boundaries of America's role in the world.

"That's why I also look and have to look for talented experts with approaches and practical ideas, rather than surrounding myself with those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war," he said. "We have to look to new people because many of the old people frankly don't know what they're doing, even though they may look awfully good writing in The New York Times or being watched on television."

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Trump discouraged the idea that there were any new principles behind his foreign policy. "It won't be the Trump doctrine because in life you have to be flexible," he told reporters after his primary victories Tuesday.

Nor was it an attempt to make his foreign policy appear more presidential, he said. "I'm presidential anyway." he told CNN Wednesday. "I view presidential as just being a lower key version of myself and being sure not to use any language that would be offensive."

The Trump phenomenon has always been driven by his outsized personality. In foreign policy as in business, he suggested, success breeds success. A strong foreign policy will produce a strong economy that will allow the United States to carry a bigger stick in the world.

Roosevelt, then vice president, delivered his "big stick" speech at the Minnesota State Fair in 1901, just 11 days before he was unexpectedly thrust into the presidency by the assassination of President McKinley. He, too, addressed the challenges of nation-building, the threat of "barbarism" and the greatness of America.

But he also cautioned that it is "foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification," and urged the United States to avoid "loose-tongued denunciation."

"If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble," he said. "In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting, and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible.

"So it is with the nation."