Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration

During his campaign for election as President of the United States, George W. Bush's foreign policy platform included support for a stronger economic and political relationship with Latin America, especially Mexico, and a reduction of involvement in "nation building" and other small-scale military engagements.

On December 13, 2001, President Bush announced the withdrawal of the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a bedrock of U.S.–Soviet nuclear stability during the Cold War era. Bush stated, "I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks." According to the announcement, the withdrawal was to become effective six months from that date. The National Missile Defense project Bush supported is being designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles and destroy them in flight. Critics doubted that the project could ever work and said that it would cost US$53 billion from 2004 to 2009, being the largest single line item in the Pentagon's funding.

The Bush presidency was also marked by diplomatic tensions with the People's Republic of China and North Korea, the latter of which admitted in 2003 to having been in the process of building nuclear weapons and threatened to use them if provoked by the U.S. The administration was concerned that Iran may also be developing nuclear weapons, although Iran has denied such allegations, maintaining that it is pursuing peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Bush made his first visit to Europe in June 2001. Bush came under criticism from European leaders for the rejection of the , which was aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. He asserted that the Kyoto Protocol is "unfair and ineffective" because it would exempt 80 percent of the world and "cause serious harm to the U.S. economy".

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