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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, (front left to right) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, US President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Theresa May and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit on May 25, 2017 in Brussels, Belgium.Stefan Rousseau/Pool/Getty Images

When President Donald Trump took office, many expected him to usher in a new "independent" U.S. foreign policy, breaking the bridges forged by President Obama to multi-national organizations and significantly shifting the direction of American statecraft.

That hasnt happened.

This Independence Day, hardly anyone argues anymore that the new administration is seeking independence from international institutions or binding treaties. Indeed, the U.S. has been forward-leaning on the global stagereassuring NATO; broadly engaging in the Middle East; laying out new initiatives in Latin America; renegotiating, not scrapping NAFTA; talking tough on North Korea; sparring with China; embracing India; and redoubling efforts in Afghanistan.

Critics now complain that Trump is decoupling the U.S. from the post-World War II liberal order, the network of international institutions that fostered globalization. At least philosophically, there is no question that Trump and Obama come at foreign policy from opposite perspectives. Obama was a structuralist who believed that the keys to peace and prosperity are global institutions that normalize the behavior of states. Trump, on the other hand, is a realist. The sitting president holds that nation-states are the coin of the realm, the real power in the global order.

But in practice, the kid from Chicago and businessman from the Big Apple are less far apart than their rhetoric suggests.

For starters, the Constitution still binds the left and right. It still limits what presidents can do overseas, both through specified and imposed powers given to the executive branch, and the separation of powers that gives both the courts and Congress some say in what America does in the world.

In addition, regardless of their politics, presidents get elected to protect the nations interests. Those interests don't change dramatically unless the world dramatically changes. Thats why U.S. foreign policy always has more continuity than change from one administration to the next.

Further, presidents are hardly purists. Obama had a predilection for multi-nationalism, but he was perfectly willing to go his own way when he thought it suited U.S. policy. Likewise, Trump has no prohibitions against a multi-national approach. U.S. commitment to NATO is as strong as ever. Rather than pulling out of the United Nations, the U.S. has been proactive in its leadership role. Trump went to the G7, and hes going to the G20 and ASEAN summit.

There are still distinct differences between Trump and Obama. Some are mostly stylistic. The Paris climate accord is a case in point. Obama committed to it because it fit his politics, not because it really moved the ball on dealing with climate change. Trump pulled out because he didn't care about a symbolic commitment. Neither president's choice tells us much about the real exercise of American power in the world.

Other differences are more substantive. Obama's instinct was to make a deal and then use the deal and multi-national instruments to normalize the behavior of adversarial states. That was the plan with the Russian reset and New START treaty, chemical weapons accord with Assad, and Iran nuclear deal. Trump's instincts are to take action where there is a clear deliverable to U.S. interests on the front end, not trust the global order to tutor good behavior on the backside.

However, to portray these differences of statecraft as moving from interdependence to independencean unmooring of the U.S. from the liberal world orderis a profound oversimplification. In practice, Trump will be seen using different approaches to solving America and the world's problemssometimes acting unilaterally, but mostly working with friends and allies, and often through multi-national institutions.

Trump will certainly in the end have different policies. He may in the end produce different outcomes. But, in the final judgment, it may be far more difficult to differentiate between interdependent and independent foreign policies than the current raging controversy over Trumps international leadership suggests.

James Jay Carafano is vice president of the Heritage Foundation and directs the think tanks research on foreign relations and national security issues.

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Former President Barack Obama is reportedly stepping up his efforts to help Democrats after the party's string of election losses.

According to The Hill, Obama has had regular phone conversations with DNC Chair Tom Perez and has also met with some lawmakers on a"by-request basis."

The report states:

The conversations between Obama and the lawmakers and party leaders are said to vary.

With Perez, the men discussed the outlines of the party's future. With others, he has discussed policy.

The 44th president still reportedly prefers to be behind the scenes and not be "out front" as the party looks for a winning message in the 2018 midterm elections.

Dagen McDowell disagreed with that approach though, arguing that Obama's greatest political gift was his ability to connect with voters.

"His greatest asset is him as a messenger, not the actual message. ... He can craft the best message on planet Earth but if you have someone delivering it who squawks at you like apterodactyl, nobody is going to listen. ... That's a remark about female candidates and some male candidates as well," she said.

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Report: Obama Ramping Up Efforts to Help Dems, Meeting With Lawmakers - Fox News Insider

Former President Barack Obama has spoken on the dangers of nationalism and President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement, without actually mentioning him by name.

Obama spoke to the Fourth Congress of the Indonesian Diaspora while visiting Jakarta Saturday, according to the Hill.

"We start seeing a rise in sectarian politics," Obama said. "We start seeing a rise in an aggressive kind of nationalism. We start seeing both in developed and developing countries an increased resentment about minority groups and the bad treatment of people who dont look like us or practice the same faith as us."

He also spoke about the importance of the Paris Climate Agreement.

"In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change," Obama said.

The former president also spoke on preserving religious freedom and freedom of the press in America saying, "If we dont stand up for tolerance and moderation and respect for others, if we begin to doubt ourselves and all that we have accomplished, then much of the progress that we have made will not continue."

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Obama Warns Against an 'Aggressive Kind of Nationalism'

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Following another week of dust-ups between the media and President Trump, his predecessor shared a bit of wisdom Saturday from the other side of the world about tolerance and taking the daily news cycle in stride.

"I wasn't worried about what was in the newspapers today," former President Obama said during a nostalgic visit to Indonesia's capital, his childhood home. "What I was worried about was, 'What are they going to write about me 20 years from now when I look back?'"

Mr. Obama was greeted by a crowd of thousands, including leaders, students and businesspeople, in Jakarta, where he opened the Fourth Congress of Indonesian Diaspora. He is wildly popular in Indonesia, where many view him as an adopted son. A statue of the boy still remembered as "Barry" stands outside his old elementary school.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his speech during the 4th Congress of Indonesian Diaspora Network in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saturday, July 1, 2017.

Achmad Ibrahim / AP

He reminisced about moving to Jakarta in 1967 when he was just 6 years old, shouting, "Indonesia bagian dari diri saya!" or "Indonesia is part of me!"

Mr. Obama said he had been gorging on the local food since arriving.

"If the rainy season came, the floods were coming and we had to clean out the floors in our house and then chase the chickens because they had gone someplace else," he said to roaring laughter. "Today, Jakarta is a thriving center of commerce marked by highways and high-rises. So much has changed, so much progress has been made."

Mr. Obama lived in the country with his mother, an anthropologist, and his Indonesian stepfather. The couple split up after having his half-sister, and Mr. Obama moved back to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his grandparents. But he said he has never forgotten the years he spent in Indonesia.

"My time here made me cherish respect for people's differences," he said, noting how he and his family had just visited two of the most treasured ancient temples -- Borobudur, a Buddhist complex, and the Hindu compound of Prambanan -- in the world's most populous Muslim country.

Mr. Obama's speech came on the final leg of his 10-day vacation in Indonesia. In addition to visiting the temples in the city of Yogyakarta on the island of Java, he and his wife, Michelle, and daughters, Sasha and Malia, also went rafting and toured the resort island of Bali. On Friday, he met Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo at the grand Bogor Palace in West Java, just outside Jakarta.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama (L) and Indonesian President Joko Widodo are seen during their meeting at the Botanical Garden near the presidential palace in Bogor, Indonesia June 30, 2017.

Pool/Reuters

Mr. Obama largely stayed away from U.S. politics and the Trump administration, but he did tout one of his accomplishments while in office.

"In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history about climate change, an agreement that even with the temporary absence of American leadership, can still give our children a fighting chance," he said.

Mr. Trump shocked many countries last month by announcing he was pulling out of the accord. He has also had a difficult relationship with members of the press and was recently condemned by Democrats and Republicans for a tweet that attacked a female MSNBC host.

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Mr. Obama stressed the importance of stepping away from news sites where only like-minded views are shared, and warned about social media giving rise to resentment of minorities and bad treatment of people.

The Indonesian visit marked Mr. Obama's first trip to Asia since leaving office. He urged the country to be a light of democracy and to never stop embracing differences. Indonesia has faced a rise in Islamic radicalism and anti-gay attacks, and was recently condemned by rights groups for jailing Jakarta's former governor, an ethnic Chinese Christian, for blasphemy.

"The spirit of this country has to be one of tolerance. It's enshrined in Indonesia's constitution, it's symbolized by mosques and temples and churches beside each other," Mr. Obama said. "That spirit is one of the defining things about Indonesia. It is one of the most important characteristics to set as an example for other Muslim countries around the world."

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Obama pushes tolerance and respect in childhood home of ...

In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history about climate change, an agreement that even with the temporary absence of American leadership, can still give our children a fighting chance, Obama said during a speech in Indonesia on Saturday.

Obama stressed that even though Trump made the decision to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement, technically its not out yet.

The president spoke in lofty terms about the state of the world warning that it was a crossroads as many countries were slipping into nationalism.

We start seeing a rise in sectarian politics, we start seeing a rise in an aggressive kind of nationalism, he said. We start seeing both in developed and developing countries an increased resentment about minority groups and the bad treatment of people who dont look like us or practice the same faith as us.

Obama spoke generally about world leaders who refused to embrace tolerance and diversity.

I dont believe the future favors strongmen. I believe the future favors those who promote tolerance who are open to differences and learn from everyone, he said.

Obama spent 10 days vacationing in his childhood home of Indonesia, visiting cultural and historical sites.

Indonesia is made of thousands of islands, hundreds of languages, scores of regions and ethnic groups. So my time here made me cherish and respect for peoples differences, he said.

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Obama Laments 'Absence of American Leadership' Under ...