US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard speaks during the "Manama Dialogue" conference in Manama, Bahrain on October 31, 2025. Photo: VCG

Addressing officials on Friday in the Middle East, the US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard claimed that America's former strategy of "regime change or nation building" had ended under President Donald Trump, AP reported local time Saturday. According to some Chinese observers, the purpose of such a claim was to serve Republican interests and criticize previous Democratic administrations rather than truly reflecting on the US hegemonic approach. They believed that the Trump administration's current foreign policy has placed greater emphasis on cost efficiency, while interference in other countries' internal affairs has continued unabated, albeit in a more interest-oriented manner.

Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii and US Army National Guard veteran, made the claim at the Manama Dialogue, an annual security conference in Bahrain put on by the International Institute for Security Studies, AP reported. 

AP quoted Gabbard as saying that "for decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building."

While calling it a "one-size-fits-all approach, of toppling regimes, trying to impose our system of governance on others, intervening in conflicts that were barely understood and walking away with more enemies than allies," Gabbard admitted the results were "trillions spent, countless lives lost and in many cases, the creation of greater security threats."