‘Believes his country should be an empire’: Donald Trump’s ambitions are overturning the world order

Donald Trump’s persistent praise for dictators and haranguing of democratic leaders has bigger ramifications than we’ve realised.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

“It’s no longer speculative to ask how the post-Second World War world order, led by the United States, will end. It’s apparently already ended,” argues Canadian criminologist Jeffrey Meyers.

US President Donald Trump is full of praise for his nation’s competitors.

“The smartest one gets to the top,” he said of Russian kleptocrat Vladimir Putin.

“He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect,” he said of Chinese authoritarian Xi Jinping.

But Trump also has displayed a tendency to threaten longtime friends and allies.

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left,” he falsely said of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky this week.

“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” he said, insultingly, of his northern neighbour, while also accusing it of facilitating illegal migration and drug imports.

Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Mr Trump has called a “dictator”. Ukraine’s constitution prohibits elections while martial law is in effect, as it has been since Russia invaded in early 2022. Picture: Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom Mr Trump has been calling “Governor” – an allusion to his suggestion that Canada become a US state. Picture: Dave Chan/AFP

His schoolyard insults sometimes elicit a retort.

“The most destructive president in history,” Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd said in 2020, adding that Trump “drags America and democracy through the mud.”

“A woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathisingneo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international order,” the UK’s then foreign minister said in 2018.

But Trump’s sentiments have become even more hostile since taking office a second time.

He’s now threatening to take a page out of the “autocrat’s handbook”.

Is it all part of his “art of the deal”?

Is it his tried-and-tested real estate and reality TV-inspired “madman theory” of negotiation?

Or is it real?

Like Putin, Trump says military invasion is a valid option. Especially to seize strategic Panama.

Like Xi, he says coercion is a useful tool. Especially when it comes to Greenland and Canada.

This may be why he doesn’t think Putin and Xi’s behaviour isn’t all that bad.

But that’s not the United States that has led an unprecedented 80 years of scientific advancement, global economic growth, the establishment of international norms, and peace.

“It’s as if the US president believes that his country should be an empire,” Netherlands historian Eric Storm observes.

“In this, Trump seems to be emulating China’s Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia, leaders he has said he admires and who have themselves shown some clear imperial tendencies in recent years.”

Putin and Xi, both of whom Mr Trump has repeatedly praised over the years. Picture: Alexander Ryumin/AFP/Sputnik

The Greatest Generation’s legacy

“A world of rampant aggression would not have been a world in which trade surged and living standards soared as they did after 1945 — or one in which democracy triumphed in more countries than ever before,” says American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Hal Brands.

“Perhaps a superpower might benefit, in the short-term, from global lawlessness. But, the post-war generation realised it would ultimately fare better in a world freed from the anarchy that violent, coercive aggrandisement inevitably creates.”

It could have behaved like the Soviet Union: expansionist, hostile, totalitarian.

And the US was by no means perfect. Self-interest often trumped fair play.

But it still facilitated the establishment of the United Nations as a diplomatic forum in which to resolve international disputes. It used its military power to police – but not control – international shipping and airways. It established international forums for co-operation, not competition.

“Washington didn’t have to choose this path,” writes Brands. “After 1945, the US had unmatched power. It could have seized the best global real estate for itself”.

But World War I had introduced the slaughter of soldiers at an industrial scale. World War II extended this murderous industry to civilian populations.

This bloodshed prompted many nations to reject the old ways of empire. The US is key among them.

“The result was the marked decline of one of humanity’s nastiest, most venerable tendencies, and the onset of tremendous peace, prosperity and human progress,” Brands adds.

Because of this, global corporations can trust enormous cargo ships to deliver their goods safely.

Because of this, airliners can circle the globe with minimal risk

Because of this, researchers can co-operate to accelerate their discoveries.

“Conquest declined because the opposition of the world’s mightiest country and its allies made it less profitable and more perilous than ever before,” Brands observes.

“In recent years, however, revisionist powers, primarily China and Russia, have tested that norm. And now a US president seems to be joining the assault.”

Mr Trump. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

A new Age of Empires

“Most people assumed that the age of empires had been relegated to the dustbin of history,” writes Storm.

The immense global architecture of institutions, agreements, standards and alliances has made conquest harder than ever before.

That’s irritated the likes of Putin and Xi.

“Russia and China understand that concepts like national sovereignty and the inviolability of borders prevent them from attaining imperial glories,” argues Brands. “So as they have built, or recovered, their strength in recent years, they have tried to weaken this crucial norm through measures flagrant or more deviously subtle.”

Putin has proudly supported secessionist regimes. He’s defiantly seized territory in Georgia and Crimea. He’s militarily supported tyrants in Syria and Africa. He’s invaded Ukraine.

He also expressed his ambition to make Russia great again, as he feels it was when Tzar Peter the Great annexed much of Eastern Europe.

Xi has threatened almost all of China’s neighbours. His propagandists claim “historical” ownership of territory in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma and India. His military is asserting control over the resource-rich East and South China Seas, and the Himalayas.

He also insists that he will make China great again, overcoming a “century of humiliation” to restore the power it enjoyed during the Qing empire.

Xi Jinping. Picture: Greg Baker/AFP

Now, President Trump wants the US to be great again.

He also points to the nation’s “age of empire” when it took control of the likes of Hawaii, the Philippines, and Alaska.

“What is striking is that Putin, Xi and Trump all use fierce nationalist rhetoric to justify their imperialist designs,” argues Storm.

“Trump also refers to America’s “Manifest Destiny”, the 19th-century belief that American settlers were destined to expand to the Pacific coast. These days, his aspirations are northwards rather than to the west.”

“We’re taking it back”, Trump insists about Panama.

“It would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow (occupation) to happen because it’s for the protection of the free world,” he states about Greenland.

It’s rhetoric that goes against all the post-World War norms the US helped create.

It’s also an effective way to lose friends and isolate people.

“An expansionist America will also find it harder to oppose Russian or Chinese depredations,” states Brands. “If Washington demands that smaller countries cede territory, on what principled basis can it object when big autocracies do the same? And if the US rends its alliances by bullying the likes of Denmark and Canada, it will erode the barriers that have long thwarted revisionist designs.”

Sunset on a Golden Age

“Instead of embracing the international rule of law in the post-Second World War spirit of avoiding another devastating global conflict, the US is building new walls rather than tearing them down while at the same time threatening to annex other sovereign nations and amass new territory,” Meyers warns.

The times are changing.

Canada is angry.

“Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest without resistance,” writes political scientist Aisha Ahmad.

“There is no political party or leader willing to relinquish Canadian sovereignty over ‘economic coercion,’ and so if the US wanted to annex Canada, it would have to invade.”

Denmark is angry.

“Mister Trump, F*** off!” Danish politician Anders Vistisen told parliament.

Panama is angry.

“There will be many casualties,” former president Ernesto Balladares warns.

“If the US became an expansionist power, it would shred the existing order,” states Brands. “Other countries have long had to deal with American behaviour they deem unwise or destabilising, but for over a century they haven’t had to fear that Washington would try to make their territory its own.”

Mr Trump. Picture: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

Is it madman theory?

Or the actions of a madman?

“Trump’s threats of simply taking new territory may, in the end, amount to nothing but bluster,” writes UCLA Burkle international relations analyst Professor Kal Raustiala.

“But they not only risk a hornet’s nest of unexpected legal and political pitfalls … Even more dangerously, they threaten the foundational rule prohibiting the threat or use of force against foreign territories, with all of the destabilising consequences that may flow from undermining that bedrock norm.”

Perhaps Trump is threatening Greenland to pave the way for an increased security presence there.

Perhaps he’s seeking to scare Panama into evicting Chinese interests.

Perhaps he’s coercing Canada into a new trade agreement.

“But even if Trump’s expansionist rhetoric is mere bluster, it is nonetheless damaging,” warns Brands.

“Trump is threatening to compel the cession of territory — and perhaps even use force against friendly countries — to extort diplomatic or economic concessions. He is doing so even though he could surely get what he wants, whether greater vigilance of the Chinese presence in Panama or stronger security ties with Greenland, without making such menacing demands.”

At the very least, he’s legitimising Putin and Xi’s expansionist rhetoric and behaviour.

Putin is happy.

“He behaved, in my opinion, in a very correct way, courageously, like a real man,” he says of Trump’s apparent willingness to surrender Ukrainian sovereignty.

Xi is cordial.

Trump says the Communist Party Chairman has sent him a “beautiful note”.

“Indeed, if America stops heeding the rules, don’t think everyone else will keep following them,” concludes Brands. “Opportunists everywhere will seek their share of the loot.”

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer. Twitter: @JamieSeidel

Originally published as ‘Believes his country should be an empire’: Donald Trump’s ambitions are overturning the world order