George H. W. Bush’s invasion of Panama, beginning in December 1989, has become a flashpoint as Maduro, like the then-ruler of Panama, Manuel Noriega, is accused of running a drug business.
Operation Urgent Fury, Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983, was seen as an affront to international order. While Lyndon Johnson is remembered for ramping up the war in Vietnam, he also sent more than 20,000 troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965.
President Donald Trump, long made out to be an outlier in American history, is finding his place nicely among American imperialist leaders.
Like the last Republican president, Trump wants to take over an oil-rich state. However, in 2026, he wants to go above and beyond his predecessors. In a big way.
Trump has made it clear that the actions against Venezuela are meant to intimidate other left-wing leaders in the region, directing attention to Mexico, Cuba and Colombia specifically.
The US leader has made a lot of this invention about stopping the drug trade, an entirely laughable pretext, as Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, also a convicted drug lord.
Trump hinted at future action against Colombia, saying it “is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”.
Now, the far-right American president’s bellicosity is extending to Europe, potentially shaking up the already fragile relationship his regime has with the European Union and NATO.
Trump and his administration have revived plans to take Greenland from Denmark.
Calling for an end to Washington’s “threats”, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland.”
Frederiksen reminded the White House that Denmark “is part of NATO and is therefore covered by the alliance’s security guarantee” and that the country “gives the United States wide access to Greenland”.
None of this matters to Donald Trump these days. He gets what he wants, and no one can stop him. A war between the European Union and the United States over Greenland is highly unlikely.
If US troops land in Nuuk and plant a flag, that might as well be the end of it, and NATO as well. This is the type of world Trump wants: All muscle, no talk. We take, you cry about it. End of story.
The president told Fox News, “We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us. There’s nobody that has the capability that we have.”
This disposition is not the outgrowth of Trump’s declining mental health or a desire to distract public attention from the Epstein files, but the natural result of centuries of Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine and American exceptionalism.
Compounding this situation is the historic reluctance of US allies to pressure the White House to respect international law, refrain from violating other countries’ sovereignty, and avoid interfering in their affairs. From Vietnam to Venezuela, the list is endless.
American might is always right, and the Western alliance is always obliged to follow its lead. Every European government has an excuse to remain silent, irrespective of what the White House does. In the EU’s case, according to European media, this time, it’s the war in Ukraine.
Much of the president’s bravado and unorthodox public relations is indeed a personal quirk, but his “What are you going to do about it?” attitude is specific to America’s imperialist DNA.
I don’t know what is to be done. However, I have a few ideas about the next steps.
First, stay in the streets. Protests must continue against these escalations. Sustained pressure against imperialism is imperative, and it’s time for the left to put differences aside and focus.
It’s easy to get bogged down in the flaws of Maduro’s rule, but now is not the time for that. Focus on confronting the war machine at home, and let the history books deal with that stuff later.
Two, connect the dots. Opposing this imperial adventurism is not a distraction from the war at home. Opposing ICE and Border Patrol terror in Chicago and Los Angeles is just another front in the same fight.
The Trump Administration isn’t just terrorising regimes abroad, but terrorising immigrants–many of whom come from countries such as Colombia and Venezuela–in America.
Three, make it economic. Outside the political left in the United States, it will be imperative to deflate Trump and his party’s popularity in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.
The Trump regime likes to advertise itself as the strong bully who can tell the “little” nations what to do, and surely, there is a sector of the electorate that loves this nonsense.
But if that doesn’t make Americans’ economic lives any better, there will be a lane open to crush the Republicans in a year’s time.
More importantly, we have to show that Trump’s plans are not those of a cunning emperor but of a flailing simpleton trying to save a declining world power.
None of this will stop the president’s madness. Damage has already been done, and more will follow. Innocent people will continue to suffer because of his megalomania.
There is no counterweight on the world stage to oppose Trump’s hunger to expand the United States’ imperial domain. America remains a hyperpower, as former French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine called it in 1999, albeit one in crisis.
Nevertheless, the anti-Trump movement, which has focused on the president’s destruction of America’s administrative state and constitutional norms, must make anti-imperialism a part of the cause.
We don’t just need an antiwar movement, but one that specifically opposes the ideology of exceptionalism.
Photographs courtesy of Ari Paul. All rights reserved.
