Has he seen the national debt these days?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry decried what he called a “new isolationism” in the United States on Wednesday and suggested that the country was beginning to behave like a poor nation.

Speaking to reporters, Kerry inveighed against what he sees as a tendency within the United States to retreat from the world even as he defended the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts from Syria to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In comments tied to the budget that U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to present on Tuesday, Kerry suggested that tighter spending, in part at the behest of congressional Republicans, may limit U.S. clout around the world.

“There’s a new isolationism,” Kerry said during a nearly one-hour discussion with a small group of reporters.

“We are beginning to behave like a poor nation,” he added, saying some Americans do not perceive the connection between U.S. engagement abroad and the U.S. economy, their own jobs and wider U.S. interests.