What does "isolationism" mean?

A national (or group) policy of non-interaction with other nations (or groups).

How do you pronounce "isolationism"?

Pronounced //ˌaɪsəˈleɪʃəˌnɪzəm//.

Common synonyms include: apartheid, apartness, appeasement, balance of power, brinkmanship, capitalism.

//ˌaɪsəˈleɪʃəˌnɪzəm// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A national (or group) policy of non-interaction with other nations (or groups). countable, uncountable
"Many hope the period of American isolationism and country-first populism under President Trump will give way to an era of renewed U.S. global leadership and embrace of multilateralism to tackle common challenges."
2
a policy of nonparticipation in international economic and political relations wordnet

"America once favored a policy of isolationism."

From isolation + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.