This may seem small, but I don’t think it is. I know it will seem old-fashioned. It has to do with a great nation’s sense of its own stature on the world stage.

In the days after the apparent murder of the Saudi activist and writer Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump was repeatedly pressed about the potential U.S. response if it turned out, as seemed likely, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing. Mr. Trump made it clear his first consideration was what he thought of as a practical one: He didn’t want to cancel lucrative arms deals with the Saudi government. “I don’t like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the United States,” he said. That number was inflated, but Saudi Arabia is the largest purchaser of U.S. weapons.

Mr. Trump told Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes”: “I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that.” Later in the week he told reporters that Saudi Arabia is a “tremendous purchaser” of U.S. military equipment, and this must be factored in.

It was startling. We talk like this now? In public? I guess it’s supposed to look tough and bottom-line. But we declare now that U.S. foreign policy is quite so transactional?

We used to be ashamed, or at least embarrassed, to be seen as arms merchant to the world. It didn’t quite sit with our vision of ourselves. And American presidents, as representatives of a nation with a certain moral stature, didn’t use to declare that our world stands are heavily influenced by arms contracts.