James Costos Quotes

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

Obama considers himself above deal-making and back-slapping, political necessities he often delegates to Vice President Joe Biden and other lesser sorts.

One of the great power’s intents in granting trade concessions and inducements or taking a hard line toward another state is to enable a favorable foreign policy coalition abroad or disable an unfavorable coalition.

Communist party leadership in China knows that Canada's political and media elite values feeling superior to the United States more than they value standing on principle on the international stage.

Obama might do well to remember that his fast rise from the Illinois state Senate was due in large part to an uncanny ability to make friends and find mentors.

Obama's foreign policy is strangely self-centered, focused on himself and the United States rather than on the conduct and needs of the nations the United States allies with, engages with, or must confront.

Obama has been well-received on the world stage, but that doesn't help him operate domestically.

As Chairman of the [House] Ways and Means Committee, I can contact the President whoever he may be, quite readily on the telephone. As a Vice President, I don't know whether he'd listen to me or not.

She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs; she is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all.

You should never make alliances with a decadent nation like France and a semi-barbarous nation like Russia

Frankly, our adversaries are emboldened by the lack of American leadership in the world, and our friends and our allies, they have lost trust in us.

Because of Obama's ill-advised actions, the world has lost American leadership.

We have a very strong politician of global stature, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. There is no one like him on the world stage.

Prime Minister Abe's top-level relation-building is tremendous. I can't do the same.

Netanyahu must mend fences with Obama.

I think it's inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.

Mohammed bin Salman is deputy Crown Prince, but this is not so important. He is a very active statesman, we have really warm relations. This is a person who knows what he wants and can achieve his goals. At the same time I consider him to be a reliable partner with whom one can negotiate and be sure that agreements with him will be implemented.

We have to be eyes-wide-open with China. If I'm prime minister, we will have a serious, mature approach with China that I think shows our concerns with them on the global stage.

Governments do have the duty to protect national interest. But we should not be afraid of foreign funding of Indian CSOs, unless malintent can be proved.

This is not the colonial empire that somehow he has in his hand. I’ve never felt that from him. I felt that from [George] W [Bush]. I felt that from [Bill] Clinton. I felt that from every American president, including ones I disagreed with, including [Jimmy] Carter. I don’t feel that from President Obama.

I'm proud of Russia, that's true. And we have something to be proud of, but we do not have any obsession with being a superpower in the international arena.

I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say, you've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that.

Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.

I think what President [Barack] Obama has done is to chart a steady course. When I was there, the first four years we had a lot of cleanup to do. We inherited a lot of bad feelings from the [George W.] Bush administration, and much of what I spent my time doing was traveling around the world reassuring friends and allies.

China is ruthlessly pragmatic. It supports North Korea for its own selfish interests. And I believe that China no longer considers us an ally. The current president, Xi Jinping, cultivates close relations with South Korea. He has never met with me, the leader of North Korea, something that the leader of China has always done. At the grand celebrations in Beijing two years ago commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, he placed the president of Russia and the president of South Korea at his side. In North Korea, we pay a lot of attention to ceremonies and what they signal.