The comment alarmed many because it underscored an approach by Mr. Trump, like the rejection of migrants from certain predominantly Muslim countries, that has stripped much of the moral component from American foreign relations and left him being lectured by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and others about his duties under international law.



Her foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has gone one step further, reminding America of its moral duty as the most powerful Western country and one founded by Christian refugees.

“The United States is a country where Christian traditions have an important meaning. Loving your neighbor is a major Christian value, and that includes helping people,” he said recently. “This is what unites us in the West and this is what we want to make clear to the Americans.”

Behind the rhetoric is the idea that moral authority — as amorphous and idealistic as that can sound — has imbued America with a special kind of clout in the world, with a power that is different from that wielded by autocrats and dictators or by big countries like Russia and China.

While the Soviet-era dominance across Eastern Europe undoubtedly was undermined by an expensive Cold War arms race with the United States, it was the Western Democratic system and America that many people looked to emulate, former diplomats said.

“The Berlin Wall didn’t come down because people were responding to American howitzers,” said Joseph Nye, a former senior State Department official and now a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “It came down under hammers and bulldozers wielded by people whose minds had been affected by the ideas of the West.”

The acting State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, rejected any suggestion that the United States was walking away from its international obligations or that the administration’s statements and policies to date had diminished America’s standing.