Trump’s Imperialist Ambitions destroys the PostWar Order
We Americans do not need to expand the borders of our nation. Donald Trump has forgotten, if he ever did know it, the maxim of the super rich: “Control, don’t own. Control everything, own nothing.” Besides, he’s talking about trodding over some of our closest military allies and trading partners and adding them all to his fantasy map of a new empire.
NATO would rupture into a most unnecessary schism at the worst possible time. If NATO self-destruct, it will damage the United States and empower Russian and Chinese efforts to keep taking over their neighbors. Trump will unwittingly or maybe deliberately turn lose wannabe conquerors everywhere. The Orange Man who would be a dictator probably doesn’t care. His MAGA cultists and allied Alt-Right mafias won’t care. These actions, however, will impoverish us Americans. To return to empire building in this 21st Century will tank our economy, deplete our treasury, overextend our quiet, de facto pretend-we-really-aren’t-empire-altho-we-are, turn powerful allies against us, turn comparatively weak dictators into allies. These consequences may well cost us unimaginable lives. We Americans will end up broke and shooting at each other if we keep going on like this.
The incoming President of the United States of America wants to conquer, buy, or otherwise annex several North American countries to a new American Empire. The old empire hasn’t ever gone away, but Americans like to pretend they’re anti-imperialists, genuinely dislike empires, and generally are uncomfortable reigning as overtly racist, colonial overlords. After all, the USA was birthed in a long, chaotic revolutionary war that saw a chain of British colonies along the eastern North American seaboard win their independence from a king. The American Revolution was itself part of a protracted 127 years long world war between multiple empires and kingdoms called the Second Hundred Years War (1688-1815).
So of course Americans, championing their constitutional democratic republic, want to keep their empire hidden. They prefer a network of vested commercial interests, financial control, and economic influence secured by hundreds of military bases and intelligence webs. Trump doesn’t care. He just powers in, bursting down doors and yanking open the curtains so he can see and to show off to the world what he finds. For he is a master finders keeper transactionalist. He doesn’t rob. That’s too stealthy. He takes. National security is usually the excuse. It’s often is the truth, ironically, but he doesn’t hide or deny such things. No discretion or backchannel negotiations.
Panama: Trump wants to take back the Panama Canal. That’ll mean occupying the rest of Panama. He can make it part of his dream network of walls to keep out those eating the dogs, eating the cats, eating the parrots and whatever. Fence off the Darien Gap. Meh, smugglers, traffickers, refugees, and migrants will hopfrog along those dangerous coastlines. America will be bogged down in a forever war of occupation in Panama fighting enraged guerrillas, putting down riots, wrecking the free trade zone economy there, and generating more resentment and probably terrorists.
Mexico: Trump wants to launch air and missile attacks upon the Mexican cartels and send in US Special Forces on raids to take out those nightmarish psychopaths who justify their reigns of neofeudal blood terror with poverty and enrichment. Such incursions will be dramatic and rile up a hornet’s nest. He won’t pull out. Instead might as well invade and finish up 1848, make all of Mexico part of the United States. Good lord, might as well add in the rest of Central America, too. Add in Cuba and the Caribbean. He’ll turn the US into a typical empire: all bogged down in endless wars of occupation and counterinsurgency. Mexico, however, will add 32 more states to the Union and stars to the flag. Many of those states would probably vote for the opposite of Trump’s party.
Canada: Americans have been drooling over Canada since the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The Canadians repelled and beat the Americans every time. Since then Canada has become economically and militarily bound into the United States, but maintains its independence. Canada may prove a swifter victory than Mexico and Panama, but it’s an enormous territory to occupy. Canada would add 13 more states to the Union and stars to the flag. C’mon, Orange Man, Canada won’t ever be the 51st state, but they’ll mostly swing Democrat, yes?
Greenland: Extremely strategic autonomous part of Denmark. Hey, the Danes are Vikings! Their among our staunchest, most ferocious allies! Most Greenlanders, however, are Inuit, and want independence yet depend on Danish subsidies. Iceland became independent from Denmark, so why not Greenland, too? Oh, right, Trump desires Iceland, too. So does Putinista Russia and, yes, the Peoples Republic of China. The USA already has strong military bases in Greenland and protects Iceland, so why even rattle the cage?
I do not know how many new states Greenland and Iceland would add to the American flag, probably just one each. So that’s 2 plus Canada’s 13 plus Mexico’s 32. That’s 47 more stars! Add in Puerto Rico and DC as the new State of Douglass. That’s 49! Add it Panama as one state and that’ll make it 50! That would radically change the design of the red, white, and blue. At least it would double the size of the blue square. Fewer red and white stripes, y’all! But wait…what about Cuba and the Caribbean? Donald Trump wants those “shithole countries” as they guard the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, oops, the Gulf of America, and major North American ports. Plus there are two small French islands off the Atlantic coast of Canada. And French and British territories and commonwealth states in the Caribbean and Gulf. Sigh, Donald Trump is going to make Old Glory run out of room with so many new stars! That’ll, uh, that’ll cost a lot of money!
Think how much money it will cost to integrate all of these into the already squabbling United States. The money to enlarge the US Capitol as Congress will double in size. The money to change all those street signs, or add new ones in English, and change all of those flags over and over and over again. Now much money will it take to integrate the airports, seaports, railroads, highways, and all the myriad different rules and regulations. Think of the mail, the postal services. If there’s any silver lining in the gloom, perhaps the United States will finally, finally adopt the metric system the rest of Earth uses. Yes, do away with the archaic, annoying imperial system of feet and pounds and Fahrenheit readings. And hopefully this new greater Trumpian North American Union of sorts will adopt the best features of Canada’s public healthcare system and merge them with the best of the American system.
Trump’s fixation on Greenland, Canada, Mexico, and Panama is opening the same Pandora’s Box Putin, Xi, and Türkiye’s Erdogan have been grunting to pry off for years. That’s demolishing the inviolability of international borders since the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the establishment of the United Nations. Putin will have his justification to expand his new Russian Empire. Xi will seek to gobble up not just Taiwan but the rest of those island chains, secure the Himalayas, eye Mongolia, and maybe even those old Chinese territories taken by the Russian Tsars. India’s Modi dreams of Akhand Bharat, a Greater India/Hindustani empire. Israel’s hawkish Netanyahu and gang desire a Greater Israel as Türkiye’s Erdogan works to revive and build out a Neo-Ottoman empire. Fundamentalist Jihadist Muslims dream of another caliphate/sultanate uniting the world. Many nations born out of colonialism across Eurasia, Africa, the islands of the world’s oceans, Australasia, and Central and South America want to change their borders. Venezuela wants to take half of Guyana. Bolivia wants back it access to the Pacific. Thousands of stateless-nations dream of independence. Things will explode around the world. The wars of Africa will merge again into an even greater conflagration. Putin initiated the destruction of the Postwar order, but Trump will complete it. He’ll blow it up.
Full disclosure here as the author: I am an American. Born and raised in Virginia and the Upper South, and moved out to the Pacific Northwest over three decades ago. I am a proud American citizen, love my country, am aware of its complex history including many awful events and actions, and have protested multiple times against a number of injustices. Protest is a grand American tradition, and my profound hearing loss kept me out of the US Armed Forces where I felt drawn to the Navy. So never served in that way. I am patriotic to our constitutional democratic republic even while it remains a most imperfect union in need of numerous significant reforms. And I dread the incoming administration of a man I view as a destructive despot even if he does promise to disclose the truth about UFOs, UAPs, and NHIs or Non-Human Intelligences (not animal or A.I. either).
As an American who loves his nation, I also love my neighbors. I have no desire to restart old empires and add neighboring countries by force into the United States. If these countries choose to join freely and without coercion, great! Wonderful! I would welcome them. And only if they join by their own choice.
What would be even better is our species wake the hell up and grow some pubic hair and backbone and create a democratic world government together. We need to outgrow our juvenile reactivity for violence and greed and stop blaming everyone else for our own problems. We face extinction as so many of our complex global challenges morph into seemingly impenetrable brambles of wicked problems. The list grows from thermonuclear warfare to global climate disruption to rising energy demands to deadly new pandemics to homelessness to both domestic and international violence to religious and political extremism to A.I. and the technological singularity to many more messes of our own making. What we as a species, as Homo sapiens, must do, leaves me doubtful. We are long over due to replace co-stupidity with co-intelligence and learn to work together across our divisions to build the foundations for a democratic world republic. That’s the only way we’re going to heal our world and fix the damage we’ve done to this planet, to this Earth, to this world we are all supposed to steward with responsibility.
William Dudley Bass
Sunday 12 January 2025
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Copyright © 2025 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.