Instead, modern American foreign policy is grounded on two principles that do not always go down well with foreign governments and peoples: (1) maintaining and extending the post-WW II political, economic, and security institutions like the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO and the like that keep the world from blowing apart; and (2), preserving America as a military, economic, political, and cultural superpower and preventing the emergence of a peer competitor or of a hostile alliance system.
Human nature and the sad record of history being what they are, we are far better off with this as a national strategy instead of merely seeking popularity and avoiding trouble. If we do not provide order to a world boiling with thuggery, fanaticism, and menace, no one else will. Of course, for bad actors around the world, that makes America the enemy.
“institutions like the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO and the like that keep the world from blowing apart”
Every one of those spreads misery, war, loots America, and destroys freedom. Each of those mostly provides full employment for legions of EU bureaucrats. Sad that anyone still sees those as making a better world.