History

Hail Caesar: Trump and the New American Empire?

Donald Trump’s recent declaration of plans to expand US territory and rebrand the Gulf of Mexico reflects a modern twist on imperial ambitions. While critics dismiss his rhetoric as bluster, historical parallels and America’s past expansions suggest his vision might align with a broader strategy rooted in power, precedent and realpolitik.
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Trump and the New American Empire?

Via Shutterstock.

January 17, 2025 06:47 EDT
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In the British Museum stands the early ninth-century BC limestone obelisk of Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III. The illustrations decorating it reveal rows of supplicants from the four quarters of the Assyrian empire all bending the knee.

Via the Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Whilst the Assyrian empire may now be long forgotten, and the modern world decolonized after World War II, as historian Krishan Kumar writes, “The ‘end of empire’” is not necessarily “the end of empire.” For, as the 21st century comes into its adolescence, President Vladimir Putin’s Russia invades Ukraine, China threatens Pacific hegemony, Turkey stretches its muscle, and now US President-Elect Donald Trump looks yonder to potentially annexing Canada, Panama and Greenland. In a January 7, 2025, news conference, Trump announced to the world that he intended to expand US territory by either economic and/or military might and to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

Trump — emperor?

The question remains, therefore, is Trump a genuine emperor in waiting? Certainly, he has proven to be an able political strategist, and these public proclamations might be part of a broader Machiavellian “madman” ruse to unbalance Russia and China. There are also sound realpolitik incentives for Trump to entertain such thoughts, especially as China recently attempted to acquire a portion of Iceland with a possible view to developing a refueling station there as climate change has opened up Arctic transportation.  What is more, although the Kingdom of Denmark (of which Greenland is an autonomous territory) and Canada are NATO partners, their military expenditure is below the required threshold of 2% of GDP. Trump can possibly afford, therefore, to forswear his allies if it improves his own public standing and America’s security. 

Yet the omens suggest that Trump is a serious contender for the purple, a factor that Mélanie Jolie, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, has also asserted. During his first term as president, and like other emperors of the ancient past, Trump wanted to build a great wall. Likewise, Trump Tower has all the bombastic hallmarks of a Roman triumphal arch. Recent media reports of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg, Amazon CEO and owner of The Washington Post Jeff Bezos and Canadian Prime Minister-Deselect Justin Trudeau all supplicating themselves at Trump’s presidential palace at Mar-a-Lago suggest that, while the media might have changed from ancient Assyrian obelisks, the imperial meme remains the same. Even the palaces of Assyrian kings in Nimrud do not appear that dissimilar from Trump’s Florida mansion when it comes to an architecture of imperial power.

Via the Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Kevin McCarthy visits Mar-a-Lago. Public domain.

In addition to Trump being desirous of expanding American power, the US has a long history of imperial expansion, both in terms of Cold War engagements as well as more direct 19th-century incursions into the Caribbean and Pacific. Nevertheless, that nation’s own continental empire is often overlooked as an imperial conquest: “No one speaks about the colonization of the Midwest and west of the United States, ” according to historian Moses Finley.

This period of expansionism might be forgotten now, but some contemporary supporters of Manifest Destiny had envisioned all North and Central America falling under US control. What is more, much of this continental territory, despite the Hollywood Western image, was won not by military victory but rather through legal purchase. Alaska, Louisiana, Florida and the Gadsden Purchase are among a few of the more prominent examples. Additionally, in 1917, America, motivated by fears that foreign powers might use the islands as a base to threaten the Panama Canal, successfully negotiated with Denmark to acquire the Danish West Indies — now the US Virgin Islands. Given that the Danes have already acquiesced in such an agreement with the US, Trump’s proposal to purchase Greenland aligns with precedent.

Moreover, purchase has not been the only relatively subtle approach used to expand America’s global reach; the country has also rented territory. Examples include Guantanamo, Diego Garcia and the Panama Canal zone. As a result, a future takeover of these territories in one form or another is not out of the realm of possibility. Such an approach to expansion is also more fitting with Trump’s transactional outlook and his property mogul background. This “monopoly imperialism,” a typology of expansion by purchase and lease that resembles the board game Monopoly, has often slipped under the radar given that it was all done legally and without recourse to violence. What is even more intriguing about this approach is that all of these purchases and leases, unlike so many other 19th-century European thalassocracies, remain intact.

Canadians in the wake of Trump’s announcement might joke that his remarks resemble a South Park scenario, and they may flippantly jest that Trump has to find Canada on the map before he can invade, but these eventualities are really possible.

For Americans, there is danger too. Trump’s tenure might herald both a clever strategy to secure the future of the country and another chapter, a 21st-century variant, in the history of that nation’s imperial drive, but it also portends a new period in that nation’s politics with a potential Palpatine pivot from republic to empire.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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