President Trump announces national security strategy, 1st in term

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump on Monday announced the national security strategy, the first of its kind since he took office in January and the 17th since the former Reagan administration began to submit the report to the US Congress in 1987.

In a speech delivered in Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Trump said the report, which has been developed for over a year, features "principled realism" and identifies four vital national interests or four "pillars," namely, to protect the homeland and its people, promote the US prosperity, preserve peace through strength and advance the US influence.

"This strategy recognizes that, whether we like it or not, we are engaged in a new era of competition. We accept that vigorous military, economic and political contests are playing out all around the world," he said.

He also vehemently blasted the "failures" of his predecessors, saying "for many years our citizens watched as Washington politicians presided over one disappointment after another." These included the expansion of the Islamic State (IS) and the unfairly proportionally defense burden Washington has shouldered for its allies.

Saying he will not tolerate the aforementioned "disappointments" any more, Trump also defended a string of his highly controversial decisions to retreat from "job-killing deals" and the "very expensive and unfair Paris climate accord," as well as to decertify the hard-won Iran nuclear deal in October.