This week President Donald Trump traveled through Europe, confronting and charming America's allies along the way. And Ohio Gov. John Kasich traveled to Washington to speak to the National Press Club, explaining why our old alliances with these democracies are precious. The following is an edited version of the speech the governor gave on Thursday.

About a week ago, I was talking to my uncle George. He is 92, still walks a couple of miles a day; he's a terrific guy. We started to talk about his experience in World War II. Uncle George was in the infantry. He survived by not having his unit placed on a boat that would ultimately sink on its way to the Battle of the Bulge. Because they were crowded on that ship, his unit took a ship the next day and landed in northern France.

My father and my uncle Steve fought on Iwo Jima. That's my family heritage, and when we think about our heroes, our military heroes, I always like to think back to the contributions that were made by our men in World War II, and I think about how amazing it must have been to be on those barges on D-Day, knowing that as part of the first wave, I may not survive.

When I think about that, I think about how amazing America is, and how amazing our spirit is, and what is it all about. It's about preserving our values; it's about preserving the ability of every human being to be able to live to their God-given potential. It's about the ability of people to be free: freedom of speech, freedom to practice religion. It's about the highest sense of what it means to be a human being, and America encapsulates that.

Now, post-World War II, we helped rebuild the world. The Marshall Plan was incredible because not only did we rebuild parts of the nations who were our allies, but we also chose to help people who actually were our enemies. Whether it was the reconstruction of Germany, whether it was the resources that we put in to Japan, and as we look today, what was the payoff?

Well Japan is one of the strongest democracies in the world, and we all celebrated when it was completed in Germany in 1989, when the wall came down. Between 1946 and 1952 we invested $2.2 billion, or $18 billion in 21st century dollars, because we thought that it made sense for us and the world, for those that shared our values, because nobody functions very well alone.

We do well when we work in teams. We do well when the strong support the weaker, when the weaker step up at times to give greater strength to those that are strong. And so we decided that it was important, post-World War II, to cement these alliances that we had with our friends and our enemies, who ultimately shared our great and strong values.

Let me tell you what I'm very concerned about. I think that we have been pursuing an America-alone policy, not America first. We have been bullying countries all over the world, and to me it never makes sense for America to adopt a wrecking-ball strategy. Take the wrecking ball, break things up, and at the end try to declare that we had some sort of a victory.

In this April 3, 2018, file photo, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, smiles as he addresses a gathering during a visit to New England College in Henniker, N.H. (Charles Krupa / AP)

I was in the Oval Office with Barack Obama talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now that is something that Republicans had as a fulcrum of their philosophy and conservatives had as a fulcrum of their philosophy. Free trade, open trade, which connects the world, which allows people in poverty to rise out of poverty, and our free trade programs have allowed more people to escape poverty than any other program we've ever put in place.

We withdrew from the TPP. We created a vacuum in Asia, with a lot of small countries that kind of felt that they needed the strength of America to bolster them, because they fall in the shadow of China, which has a value system that is so completely different than ours.

Then we turned around and we withdrew from the Paris Accord, unilateral withdrawal from the Paris Accord. Now, this whole argument about science, well there's one thing that's pretty darn clear, that we are seeing significant environmental degradation. Just look at the Great Barrier Reef, some of which will never be restored to its beauty and its glory, created by the good Lord, that shows the beauty of nature and the glory of God. We withdrew from the Paris Accord; we created a problem.

Then we decided that after having made an agreement to stop the enrichment of uranium, that we would withdraw from the Iranian accord. Our allies visited with the president and argued that it didn't make much sense, that it was an agreement that was being adhered to, and that it made sense to stay in there to monitor. We decided we'd go our own way. America alone again.

Then I watched with trepidation, the G7 summit. I was shocked to see the kind of disruption that was occurring. Insults, unacceptable behavior in my opinion, and at the end, not even an agreement on a communiqué. Then I watched the imposition of tariffs on our friends, our allies in Europe, the Canadians, the Mexicans, under the guise of national security.

Now, a number of these countries that we have been picking on, we find their troops stationed with us in Afghanistan, contributions to the efforts in Iraq, and then under a national security guise we say: We're going to impose tariffs. This without any question has sent shock waves through the EU, NATO, the Western world.

So I looked at all of this and I thought to myself, the alliance that has kept the peace for 70 years is being frayed. The fraying of relationships has consequences.

Now we all know, and I give the president credit for being willing to stand up to the Chinese who have violated our international property rules. Are tariffs the right way to go? Probably not. There are probably other approaches that can be taken that can bring a clear message to the Chinese about the fact that they need to stop doing this, but we need our allies to be willing to stand up with us to hold the Chinese accountable.

Now when you spend your time running around and getting into these disagreements in a disagreeable way, it's pretty hard to come back and ask your allies to support you when the going gets tough.

What I worry about is not some of the aims or the goals of the president, every president has decided and made the case as I sat in the Congress, that NATO needs to do more to support themselves. What was achieved at this summit from what I can tell is that they agreed to what they had agreed to before. Now maybe it's been accelerated, I'm all for that, and there's everything right with some straight talk, but it has to be done in my opinion in an appropriate way. Wrecking ball strategies rarely end up being successful over the long term.

I commend the president for his efforts to try to step up and do something about the IP robbery that China commits on a regular basis, and I support that, but I think there are better ways to accomplish our goals.

I am increasingly concerned that with the fraying of the relationship with our friends, with people who support our values, who love freedom, who are willing to invest human lives on the battlefield to preserve this, that as this alliance can potentially wither, what takes its place? What keeps the peace?

Is it important that we have discussions with Russia? Of course, because we have mutual interests all over the world, in the Middle East, particularly with Syria. We have concerns about cybersecurity, election interference, all these things matter, but most important, the issue of arms control. We need to get back to the table to deal with the problem of arms control, so that the world can be made safer. So I hope that this summit will be successful, but that the president will realize, and I'm sure he does, the significant difference between their approach to the world, our approach to the world and that of our allies.

Finally, all is not lost yet. When your clothes fray, you can repair them. We just don't want to get to the point where we do damage to the relationships that we have, that have served us very well.

John Kasich is governor of Ohio. He gave this speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

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