-Trump’s Territorial Ambitions: Imperialism or Illusion?
The attack on Venezuela and the seizure of its president was a shocking enough start to 2026, but it was only the next day, when the smoke had dispersed and Donald Trump was flying from Florida to Washington DC in triumph, that it became clear the world had entered a new era.
The US president was leaning on a bulkhead on Air Force One, in a charcoal suit and gold tie, regaling reporters wiht inside details of the abduction of Nicolás Maduro. he claimed his government was “in charge” of Venezuela and that US companies were poised to extract the country’s oil wealth.
Clearly giddy with the success of the operation, achieved without a single US fatality but several Venezuelan and Cuban ones, Trump then served notice on a string of other nations that could face the same fate. “Cuba is ready to fall,” he said. Colombia was run by a “sick man” who was selling cocaine to the US but who would not “be doing it for very long”.
Trump said he would postpone for 20 days to two months any discussions about his desired takeover of Greenland, the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, a nato ally, but made clear he was persistent to seize it for the sake of US “national security”.
New imperialism
Table of Contents
Lest there was any doubt about the scale of trump’s territorial ambitions,his administration posted its message to the world in capital letters,some of them red,on social media.
“This is OUR hemisphere,” the state department declared on X above a black a“`html
Putin’s rationale for Russia’s expansionism draws heavily on historical grievances and a sense of lost empire. He frequently invokes the idea of gathering “historical Russian lands” and protecting Russian speakers abroad, a narrative that underpinned the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Xi Jinping’s ambitions for China are similarly rooted in a revisionist view of history. He speaks of restoring China to its “rightful place” at the center of the world order, a position it held for centuries before being humbled by western powers in the 19th and 20th centuries.China’s construction of military bases around the South China Sea draws from that rationale, but xi has repeatedly made clear the mission will not be completed until Taiwan is back under Beijing’s rule.
Like the other two ageing autocrats, Trump’s vision for his country harks back to a bygone imperial past. His favorite president is William McKinley, who led the US through a surge of territorial expansion at the end of the 19th century, including the military takeover of Cuba and the annexation of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and American Samoa.
Trump has also looked to the early 19th century for inspiration for his new bout of territorial acquisitiveness, in the form of the Monroe doctrine.
“It was very crucial, but we forgot about it. We don’t forget about it any more,” the president said on Saturday.
The reference not only reflected a view of the past uncomplicated by any detailed reading on Trump’s part, but also the changing relationship between the US and the notion of empire.
the country was founded as a rejection of British imperialism and when President James Monroe developed his doctrine in 1823, setting out the leading US role in the Americas, it was to act as a barrier to any further European colonialism.
the version of the doctrine that Trump appears to embrace, however, is its repurposing by Teddy Roosevelt in 1904 at the height of a US exercise in conventional imperialism. Under the “Roosevelt corollary”, the US took on the role of “police power” wich would intervene in any country in the region where it perceived there to be ”flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence”.
In its Potential clash of empires
The US seizure this week of an oil tanker, the Marinera, despite the fact it was Russian flagged and escorted by a Russian submarine, brought into urgent focus the question of whether, and for how long, the ambitions of the three superpowers can be reconciled without major conflict. “There can be really rather a protracted period of time in which empires can coexist,” Nathalie Tocci, the director of Italy’s Institute of International Affairs, said. “it’s not as if Trump is saying: I want to be the only empire; trump is basically signalling and acting as if he’s absolutely fine with Russia and China being empires. “In the short to medium term, I would say that the greater risk is not the empires clashing with one another, but the subjugation of the colonies,” she said. Putin and Xi would certainly be content with a world sliced into spheres of influence. During the first The Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine, initially proclaimed by President James Monroe in 1823, asserted that European powers should not further colonize or interfere with independent nations in the Americas. The U.S. state Department provides a historical overview of the doctrine. The original intent was to prevent European re-colonization of newly independent Latin American states.It did not initially involve direct U.S.intervention in the internal affairs of these nations, but rather a warning against external interference. such as, in 1823, the United States, fearing Russian expansion along the Pacific coast, used the Monroe Doctrine as justification to assert its influence in the region, though direct military action was not promptly taken. Britannica details the early applications of the doctrine. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt considerably expanded the monroe Doctrine with the ”Roosevelt Corollary.” ThoughtCo provides a summary of the Roosevelt Corollary. This corollary asserted the right of the United States to intervene in the domestic affairs of Latin American nations if they were unable to maintain order or pay their debts to European creditors. Roosevelt justified this intervention as necesary to prevent European powers from using financial instability as a pretext for intervention, effectively establishing the U.S. as a regional hegemon. This marked a shift from simply opposing european colonization to actively policing the Western Hemisphere. A key example of the Roosevelt Corollary in action was the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1905, where the U.S. took control of customs collection to ensure debt repayment to European creditors. The U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Historian details the Dominican Republic intervention. In December 2017, the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the Trump administration proposed a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, referred to as the “Trump corollary.” The full National security Strategy document is available from the National Archives. This corollary asserts that no foreign power should “own or control strategically vital assets” in the Americas. This interpretation represents a renewed focus on U.S. economic and strategic interests in the region, particularly concerning natural resources.It suggests a willingness to challenge the influence of countries like China and Russia in Latin America and the Caribbean. The NSS frames this as protecting the sovereignty of nations in the region, but critics argue it prioritizes U.S.control. As of January 10, 2026, there have been no major, formally declared interventions based explicitly on the “Trump corollary,” but the administration’s policies regarding Venezuela and its increased scrutiny of Chinese investment in Latin American infrastructure projects reflect this approach. The Council on Foreign Relations analyzed the implications of the Trump administration’s approach to Latin America in 2018. While the specific policies have evolved under subsequent administrations,the underlying concern about external influence remains.The Roosevelt Corollary
The “Trump Corollary” and Strategic Assets