In short, Washington urged the new country to proceed with caution. He states that "amicable" relationships with all nations is greatly more beneficial than strong attachments to some countries or strong animosities with others. Washington goes on to explain that a country that becomes too aligned with another nation becomes wrapped up in the affairs of that country, which may not be in its own best interests. The enemies of that too-friendly country become its own enemies. Sympathies for a favored nation produce complications; a country may assume that it has more in common with this country than is actually the case.

Washington asserts that the influence of other nations is a monumental threat to a republican government. He suggests that offering commercial relations to other countries builds an ample relationship; fulfilling those obligations well serves to build a relationship that is neither overly friendly nor fraught with tension.

Washington supports a "neutrality" among the affairs of other nations, which could prove beneficial when world tensions arise:

When belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

An international stance of distance therefore allows the new America to have a choice in its foreign conflicts; by not building any comparatively strong relationships, it is not destined to become wrapped up in conflicts which are not its own. Washington reiterates this point:

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it.