On every airplane before departure, flight attendants share important safety protocols with passengers. For example, “Should an emergency situation occur, you need to put your own oxygen mask on first, before attempting to help those around you.” Of course, this warning is not selfish, but only common sense, for a passenger that has no oxygen cannot help anyone else.

This safety tip should be applied to leaders in all nations, including the United States. Our politicians should deal with the emergency in this country before trying to fix problems in the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, both political parties are beset with globalists who want to spend American tax dollars on international organizations and far-flung wars instead of dealing with the worsening crisis in our country.

After the 9/11 attacks on our country, the United States entered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that lasted twenty years. The overall cost for those wars, the most expensive in American history, will total between $4 and $6 trillion.

As noted by Linda Blimes of the Harvard Kennedy School, this astonishing total “includes long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment, and social and economic costs. The largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid.”

When the United States entered these wars, the dictatorial leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan were opposed to our country. After twenty years of war, neither of these countries are aligned with the United States. Today, Iraq is aligned with Iran and Afghanistan is led by the Taliban, an Islamic terrorist organization that is once again welcoming other jihadist organizations to the country.

Our naive “nation-building” goals were not achieved by these wars. Instead, 7,057 American military service members died during the conflicts and 30,177 died of suicide in the years following the wars. Countless other military veterans were seriously injured, both mentally and physically, from these unnecessary wars.

Imagine how strong the United States would be today if the trillions of dollars wasted on those wars was spent on the American people. Instead of lavishing money on infrastructure projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, those dollars should have been invested in American schools, roads, bridges, and, yes, border walls.

Yet, any politician, like President Donald Trump, who advocates for “America First” policies is labeled by the establishment of both political parties as an “isolationist.” These establishment politicians, like former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) or Trump’s Democratic Party opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, are proud to be called globalists, or even neocons.

What is wrong with placing the primary focus of our federal government on “America First?” If America is destroyed how much can our country help the rest of the world? A strong America can do more for others in need than a country that is weak and in turmoil.

This issue is one of the major differences between Trump and Harris. During his presidency, Trump removed the United States from the Paris Climate Accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He placed tariffs on Chinese goods to protect American industry and returned manufacturing jobs to the United States.

Trump famously embarrassed European nations to contribute more to their national defense as partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Trump rightly complained that America was shouldering too much of NATO’s financial burden.

He also focused on the open southern border and was elected in 2016 on a pledge to “Build the Wall.” No thanks to a do-nothing Congress, Trump built hundreds of miles of border wall, instituted a sensible “Remain in Mexico” policy, and ended the horrendous “Catch and Release” protocols.

Sadly, upon entering the White House, President Joe Biden immediately ended Trump’s successful policies and stopped construction of the border wall. Biden and Harris, the laughably incompetent “Border Czar,” purposely left open our country’s southern border. The resulting “invasion” has been designed to radically change the country demographically and politically.

While it is not known exactly how many undocumented migrants have entered the country during this administration, with some estimates at approximately ten million, there is no doubt there has been a massive increase since January 2021, the end of President Trump’s term in office.

Among this influx of noncitizens into our country there has been an enormous number of extremely dangerous criminals. Last week, it was announced by U.S. Congressman Tony Gonzalez (R-TX), that the Biden-Harris administration is allowing 425,431 “convicted criminals” to freely roam the country. This number includes an astounding 13,099 convicted murderers and 17,000 who have been charged or found guilty of sexual offenses.

As this information was made public, Harris made her first visit to the southern border in three years. She was pathetically trying to show the American people that she cared about the problem of illegal immigration, which polls have consistently indicated as ranking among the top concerns of voters.

Americans are properly worried about the open border because they have seen the resulting increase in crime, fentanyl related deaths, and economic woes caused by undocumented migrants in communities across the country. Today, as the Biden administration sends noncitizens to communities all over the country, every state has become a border state.

In response to the disclosure that so many criminals are illegally in our country, President Trump stated “Nobody who has allowed this to happen to our Country is fit to be President of the United States!”

He is right, Biden and Harris purposely allowed our country to be invaded by noncitizens, including murderers, and refused to secure the border. Their top official in charge of the border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, repeatedly lied and said that the border was “secure.”

Before sending more billions of American tax dollars to the war in Ukraine or international organizations, our next President must focus on our problems: an open border, a bad economy, homelessness, rising crime and drug overdose deaths among a multitude of other issues. We must have a President who will put “America First.”

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America’s Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-9 a.m. & 6-7 p.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com.