Former British P.M. Tony Blair Warns Against Trumpian Isolationism, Praises Hillary Clinton

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair did not refer to Donald Trump by name, but he sounded a clear warning against the isolationism espoused by the GOP candidate.

Speaking at a Reuters forum in midtown Manhattan Tuesday morning moderated by editor-at-large Harry Evans, Blair posited that the biggest divide in political ideologies today was not between right and left, but between “open” and “closed.” The world could not afford an America that opted to turn inward, he said.

“The world needs an America that’s engaged in the world. If America starts to close itself off from the world and alienate its allies, it’s a huge problem for all of us,” he said. “America is the referee on the pitch,” he continued. “If you imagine the soccer game where the referee just decides to go back in the changing room,” the crowd might be satisfied for a brief time, but “after a while it’s chaos.”

The U.S. is not only the “most powerful country in the world, but it stands for a set of values that are important, and it stands for those values all over the world,” he said. “This is what you offer to the world. If you turn away from the world when those values are getting traduced” in states where human rights abuses occur, “you don’t fulfill your destiny to the world.”

While he would not identify Trump by name — his remarks were coyly directed at a hypothetical isolationist coming into power in America — he praised Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for her “wisdom, common sense, and integrity.” He noted that she was someone “I respect and admire completely on the basis of experience, not on what I read.”

He added, “We need you engaged in the world. Don’t please turn back in on yourself.” If America were to stop being engaged in the world, “I fear for the 21st century,” he said. “I really do.”

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Sam Reisman (@thericeman) is a staff editor at Mediaite.