Imperialist rhetoric is changing into a mark of President Donald Trump’s second time period. From asserting that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip, Greenland and the Panama Canal to apparently siding with Russia in its warfare on Ukraine, Trump’s feedback counsel a return to an outdated imperialist fashion of forcing overseas lands beneath American management.
Imperialism is when a nation extends its energy by territorial acquisition, financial dominance or political affect. Traditionally, imperialist leaders have used army conquest, financial coercion or diplomatic stress to broaden their dominions, and justified their overseas incursions as civilizing missions, financial alternatives or nationwide safety imperatives.
The time period “empire” usually evokes the Romans, the Mughals or the British, however the U.S. is an imperial energy, too. Within the nineteenth and early twentieth century, American presidents expanded U.S. territory westward throughout the continent and, later, abroad, buying Puerto Rico and different Caribbean islands, Guam and the Philippines.
After that, outright territorial conquest principally ceased, however the U.S. didn’t hand over imperialism. As I hint in my 2023 guide, “Dying by the Sword,” the nation as an alternative embraced a subtler, extra strategic type of expansionism. On this veiled imperialism, the U.S. exerted its international affect by financial, political and threatened army means, not direct confrontation.
Embracing conventional U.S. imperialism would upend the principles which have stored the globe comparatively steady since World Warfare II. As an knowledgeable on U.S. overseas coverage, I concern that will unleash concern, chaos – and presumably nuclear warfare.
No redrawing borders
One of the basic ideas of this post-war worldwide system is the idea of sovereignty – the concept that a nation’s borders ought to stay intact.
The United Nations Constitution, signed in San Francisco in 1945, explicitly bars nations from acquiring territory by drive. Outright annexation or territorial takeover is taken into account a direct violation of worldwide regulation.
Work by the late political scientist Mark Zacher outlines how, since World Warfare II, the worldwide neighborhood – together with the U.S. – has largely upheld this commonplace.
However imperialism nonetheless shapes world politics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is a blatant occasion of imperial ambition justified by alleged historic grievances and nationwide safety considerations. Russia’s invasion set a harmful precedent by undermining the precept that borders can’t be modified by drive and that nations shouldn’t resort to aggression.
Putin’s precedent, in flip, has raised considerations that one other nice energy might try to forcibly redraw worldwide borders.
Take China, for instance. President Xi Jinping has turn into more and more aggressive towards Taiwan since 2019. If Putin’s invasion culminates with Russia efficiently annexing elements of Ukraine – which the Trump administration has agreed with Russia must be a part of any settlement – Xi might comply with by on his threats to invade Taiwan.
A destroyed Russian tank in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 23, 2023. Territorial invasions like Russia’s ongoing effort to annex elements of Ukraine have been comparatively uncommon since World Warfare II.
Roman Pilipey/Getty Photos
Respect for nationwide sovereignty has made the world extra steady and fewer violent.
The decline of conventional imperialism after World Warfare II led to a flourishing of unbiased nation-states. As former colonial powers steadily relinquished management of their holdings within the second half of the twentieth century – voluntarily or after shedding wars of independence – the variety of sovereign nations elevated dramatically. The U.N. had 51 member nations in 1945 and over 150 by 1970.
The U.N. was based on the concept that individuals of all nations ought to have a say in how they construct their very own futures. Immediately, 197 nations attempt to work collectively by the U.N. on a variety of world points, together with defending human rights and decreasing international poverty.
When a significant energy just like the U.S. overtly embraces imperialist rhetoric, it additional weakens the already fragile guidelines that preserve this delicate collaboration working.
Nonviolent imperialism
Imperialism doesn’t require army drive. Nice powers nonetheless exert affect over weaker nations, shaping their conduct by financial may and wealth, diplomacy and strategic alliances.
The U.S. has lengthy engaged on this type of affect. It has usually pursued its imperialist agenda in what I’d name a extra “gentlemanly manner” than historic empires with their bloody bodily conquests.
Through the Chilly Warfare, for instance, the U.S. established in depth dominance over a lot of the globe. In Latin America and the Center East, it used financial assist, army alliances and ideological persuasion relatively than outright territorial enlargement to exert its management. Russia did the identical in Jap Europe and its different spheres of affect.
Demonstrators in Panama Metropolis insist ‘Panama Canal is Not For Sale’ following Donald Trump’s threats to grab the canal, Jan. 20, 2025.
Arnulfo Franco/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Immediately, China excels at nonviolent imperialism. Its Belt and Highway Initiative, a worldwide infrastructure development venture launched in 2013, has created deep financial dependencies amongst associate nations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Commerce and diplomatic ties between China and people areas are a lot nearer immediately in consequence.
Nuclear period
A important distinction between imperialism previous and current is the presence of nuclear weapons.
In earlier eras, nice powers steadily fought wars to broaden their affect and settle disputes. International locations may try to seize territory with little danger to their survival, even in defeat.
The sheer damaging potential of nuclear arsenals has modified this calculus. The Chilly Warfare doctrine of mutually assured destruction ensures that if one nation launches a nuclear weapon, it is going to rapidly turn into the goal of nuclear counterattack: annihilation for all sides.
Any main warfare between nuclear-armed nations now carries the danger of large, doubtlessly planetary, destruction. This makes direct conquest an irrational, even suicidal technique relatively than a calculated political maneuver.
And it makes Trump’s old-school imperial rhetoric notably harmful.
If the U.S. tried to annex overseas territory, it might virtually actually provoke severe worldwide battle. That’s very true of probably the most strategic locations Trump has threatened to “take over,” just like the Panama Canal, which hyperlinks 1,920 ports throughout 170 nations.
These imperialist threats, even when they’re not meant as severe coverage proposals, are already ratcheting up international tensions.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino — a pro-American ally — has flatly dominated out negotiating with the U.S. over management of the Panama Canal. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, says its territory of Greenland is “not for sale.” And Palestinians in Gaza, for his or her half, fiercely reject Trump’s plan to maneuver all of them out and switch their homeland right into a “Middle East Riviera,” as have neighboring Arab nations, which might be anticipated to soak up thousands and thousands of displaced Palestinians.
Rhetoric shapes notion, and notion influences conduct. When an American president floats buying overseas territories as a viable coverage possibility, it indicators to each allies and enemies that the U.S. is not dedicated to the worldwide order that has achieved relative international stability for the previous 75 years.
With wars raging within the Center East and Europe, this can be a dangerous time for reckless rhetoric.