Without a redistribution of wealth away from the upper class, Roosevelt feared that the country would turn to radicals or fall to revolution.[366] His Square Deal domestic program had three main goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.[367] The Square Deal evolved into his program of "New Nationalism", which emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests and a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.[240]

Foreign policy beliefs
In the analysis by Henry Kissinger, Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was the duty of the United States to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social Darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest.  The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had  all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe.[368]  The United States had a duty to act decisively. 