Trump Foreign Policy : A Mix of Imperial Ideals , Naked Interests and Might Makes Right , by Henrique Silva

brava.news · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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The American journalist, John O Sullivan, articulated his revelation in 1845 into what since became known as the Manifest Destiny, most likely without predicting that the United States would use it to overstep its continental boundaries and spread its version of civilization at the world level; and, of course, in the process further American interests, which turned out to be similar in both nature and scope to those of the British empire from which the United States had liberated itself only seven decades earlier. At the Davos summit, Donald Trump repeatedly and derisively called Greenland a “piece of ice,” as if it were a god forsaken place that divine providence has now called upon him to refashion into a territory useful for maintaining world security. The fact that he only referred geographically to this “giant piece of ice” - which he finds “hard to call a land”- when talking about Greenland, totally ignoring its ancient indigenous population and its modern status as a semiautonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark should sound the alarm that he probably views Greenland as an ideal space for the civilizing enterprise of his version of Manifest Destiny. The historical reality that Trump’s epiphany is separated from that of John O Sullivan by almost two hundred years doesn’t seem to influence Trump’s ideological zeal. The only essential difference between the civilizational project of the early Americans and that of Trump lies perhaps in the former’s interest in developing agriculture and the latter’s interest -though unconfessed- in extracting rare earth minerals from Greenland’s giant deposits, which would grant the US comparative advantage against current Chinese dominance over such resources that are so crucial to new technologies and renewable energy. By the time John O’Sullivan penned an essay complaining about European interference in thwarting US western expansion and arguing for the need of annexing Texas, which had recently become independent from Mexico, the United States had already expanded far beyond the geographical area of the original thirteen colonies and was on the verge of expanding west of the Mississippi River. The US had also implemented the infamous Indian Removal Act that forced the relocation of Native Americans from their fertile ancestral lands in the Southeast so that they might be used to develop agriculture for the European descendants. So, John O’Sullivan wasn’t the original mastermind behind western expansion. With his essay, which did not prevent him from dying years later in obscurity, he was merely articulating and justifying a historical process already underway at full speed. The Pilgrims already believed God guided their journey and sanctioned their settlement in the new world, viewing the new land as a chosen place to establish a holy, righteous, and self-governing community. O’Sullivan was, thus, not postulating totally out of the blues, and he is not alone in articulating the reasons for and justifying human endeavors that historically preceded them. A few months ago, I had my own epiphany of sorts to suddenly realize that time and again historical figures find themselves articulating ideas that actually reflect past human actions. Take for example the concept of genocide, only coined in 1944 to describe the wartime Turkish attempt at the extermination of Armenians. That happened, however, much later than an even greater genocide had been already carried out to effectively exterminate some twenty million American Indians. And it doesn’t matter at all if this historical record isn’t officially declared a genocide. Another compelling case is the definition of terrorism. People who use the modern definition of terrorism often ignore or are simply unaware that actions whose nature sadly qualify them as terrorism have been practiced throughout human history since ancient times, not only by fanatical individuals or fringe groups but, most surprisingly, by state actors. Much before Nicolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, international relations and often internal politics had been at times characterized by ruthless behaviors by which political leaders and states clearly demonstrated their underlying belief that the ends justify the means; and when we today analyze such behaviors we cannot help calling them Machiavellian. When John O’Sullivan complained in his essay about European interference with American continental expansion, he echoed the preoccupations of another American political doctrine: the Monroe Doctrine. Announced by President James Monroe in 1823, “it asserted that the Western Hemisphere was off-limits to further European colonization and that any intervention would be viewed as a hostile act against the U.S.”, according to Wikipedia. By keeping Europe away from the western hemisphere, the Monroe Doctrine created the elbow room for the expansionist maneuvers dictated by the Manifest Destiny. These two American doctrines are, thus, complementary and closely intertwined. To be fair, Trump hasn’t declared himself a Manifest Destiny agent, but has publicly adopted the Monroe Doctrine, having even unapologetically named his own version of it the “Donroe Doctrine.” And he has tried to normalize its application in today’s world with the Venezuela raid to capture a sitting president of a Latin American country and with threatening military actions inside Mexico and Colombia to fight drug cartels. If one doubted, however, that his foreign policy is also inspired by the Manifest Destiny, his Davos speech may have dispelled those doubts. It is gradually becoming clear that his administration utilizes this ideology to promote territorial acquisition and carry out an assertive, nationalistic foreign policy. He has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, has suggested making Canada the "51st state," and has mentioned "taking back" the Panama Canal. He recently posted online maps of Canada, Greenland and Venezuela covered by the American Flag, apparently in a demonstration of his strategy at normalizing his imperialistic agenda in public opinion. In order to carry out this agenda, Trump has also adopted a foreign policy tool that was believed to be consigned to the dustbin of history: the gunboat diplomacy. Gunboat diplomacy is a foreign policy strategy employed in the past by the British Empire and, later, by the United States that uses conspicuous displays of naval power to intimidate, influence, or coerce another nation into granting specific concessions. It resorts to the threat of military force rather than its immediate use, which has allowed some political theorists to hail it as an alternative to war. The Monroe Doctrine and gunboat diplomacy are intrinsically linked. The Monroe Doctrine was the ideological foundation for American control of and expansion into the western hemisphere, while gunboat diplomacy provided the practical enforcement mechanism for U.S. hegemony. While the Monroe Doctrine declared the Americas off-limits to European colonization, gunboat diplomacy provided the naval coercion used to enforce this policy, often by protecting U.S. economic interests and preventing European interference by pointing guns at potential interventionists. As it turns out, gunboat diplomacy has also been restored by the Trump administration, in one specific case even switching gears from the threat of war to actual military action. We’re talking of course of the Venezuelan raid, with Nicolas Maduro having lived to regret his defiance of Trump’s order to step down allegedly in return for a comfortable exile in Turkey. The evident threat of American warships deployed to the Caribbean is said to be a manifestation of gunboat diplomacy that has often turned lethal with the blowing up of vessels suspected of carrying drugs. Such brazen acts of aggression are said to be by design a warning to some Latin American neighboring countries about the intentions of the United States, once again behaving as an international police force. The recent naval armada assembled in the Persian Gulf by the United States is also perceived by international observers as an instance of gunboat diplomacy attempting to get concessions from Iran, and even to force regime change in the Middle Eastern country. Here, so far away from the US sphere of influence, gunboat diplomacy could be viewed as the practical enforcement mechanism of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny has in the past clothed naked imperialist endeavors with high idealism. It was used as a cover for the Spanish-American War of 1898. The two declared reasons for the United States to go to war against Spain fail, however, the scrutiny of accurate historical analysis. Let’s look at the first reason, which could be justified by the ideals of the Manifest Destiny: humanitarian concerns regarding Spanish appalling colonial mistreatment of the Cuban people. Such fine sentiment is contradicted, nevertheless, by the ruthless inhumanity of both the genocide of Native Americans and arguably the most degrading form of slavery -based on racism- known to humanity, against African Americans. Both mass atrocities were being carried out by the US at the same time that it took issue with Spanish colonial policies in Cuba. As a result of the Spanish-American war, Cuba became a protectorate of the US instead of gaining true independence. In the war’s aftermath, the US also took possession of the rest of the dwindling Spanish empire. As for the second reason -Spanish sabotage of the battleship Maine, causing an explosion in Havana Harbor, Cuba, that sent 266 US crew members to their deaths- there was not a shred of evidence of the ship’s explosion being caused by any act of sabotage. In 1976, American forensic analysts would determine that the explosion was most likely caused by an initial accidental fire that ignited the great amount of ammunition the ship carried. They effectively ruled out sabotage. Imagine, however, the difficulty in trying to dissuad