By Monica Duffy Toft
Imperialist rhetoric is becoming a mark of President Donald Trump’s second term. From asserting that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip, Greenland and the Panama Canal to apparently siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine, Trump’s comments suggest a return to an old imperialist style of forcing foreign lands under American control.
Imperialism is when a nation extends its power through territorial acquisition, economic dominance or political influence. Historically, imperialist leaders have used military conquest, economic coercion or diplomatic pressure to expand their dominions, and justified their foreign incursions as civilizing missions, economic opportunities or national security imperatives.
The term “empire” often evokes the Romans, the Mughals or the British, but the U.S. is an imperial power, too. In the 19th and early 20th century, American presidents expanded U.S. territory westward across the continent and, later, overseas, acquiring Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands, Guam and the Philippines.
After that, outright territorial conquest mostly ceased, but the U.S. did not give up imperialism. As I trace in my 2023 book, “Dying by the Sword,” the country instead embraced a subtler, more strategic kind of expansionism. In this veiled imperialism, the U.S. exerted its global influence through economic, political and threatened military means, not direct confrontation.
Embracing traditional U.S. imperialism would upend the rules that have kept the globe relatively stable since World War II. As an expert on U.S. foreign policy, I fear that would unleash fear, chaos – and possibly nuclear war.
No redrawing borders
One of the most fundamental principles of this post-war international system is the concept of sovereignty – the idea that a nation’s borders should remain intact.
The United Nations Charter, signed in San Francisco in 1945, explicitly bars countries from obtaining territory through force. Outright annexation or territorial takeover is considered a direct violation of international law.
Work by the late political scientist Mark Zacher outlines how, since World War II, the international community – including the U.S. – has largely upheld this standard.
But imperialism still shapes world politics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is a blatant instance of imperial ambition justified by alleged historical grievances and national security concerns. Russia’s invasion set a dangerous precedent by undermining the principle that borders can’t be changed by force and that countries shouldn’t resort to aggression.
Putin’s precedent, in turn, has raised concerns that another great power may attempt to forcibly redraw international borders.
Take China, for example. President Xi Jinping has become increasingly aggressive toward Taiwan since 2019. If Putin’s invasion culminates with Russia successfully annexing parts of Ukraine – which the Trump administration has agreed with Russia should be part of any settlement – Xi may follow through on his threats to invade Taiwan.
Respect for national sovereignty has made the world more stable and less violent.
The decline of traditional imperialism after World War II led to a flourishing of independent nation-states. As former colonial powers gradually relinquished control of their holdings in the second half of the 20th century – voluntarily or after losing wars of independence – the number of sovereign countries increased dramatically. The U.N. had 51 member countries in 1945 and over 150 by 1970.
The U.N. was founded on the idea that people of all countries should have a say in how they build their own futures. Today, 197 countries try to work together through the U.N. on a wide range of global issues, including defending human rights and reducing global poverty.
When a major power like the U.S. openly embraces imperialist rhetoric, it further weakens the already fragile rules that keep this delicate collaboration working.
Nonviolent imperialism
Imperialism does not require military force. Great powers still exert influence over weaker nations, shaping their behavior through economic might and wealth, diplomacy and strategic alliances.
The U.S. has long engaged in this form of influence. It has often pursued its imperialist agenda in what I would call a more “gentlemanly manner” than historical empires with their bloody physical conquests.
During the Cold War, for example, the U.S. established extensive dominance over much of the globe. In Latin America and the Middle East, it used economic aid, military alliances and ideological persuasion rather than outright territorial expansion to exert its control. Russia did the same in Eastern Europe and its other spheres of influence.
Arnulfo Franco/AFP via Getty Images
Today, China excels at nonviolent imperialism. Its Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure construction project launched in 2013, has created deep economic dependencies among partner nations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Trade and diplomatic ties between China and those regions are much closer today as a result.
Nuclear era
A critical distinction between imperialism past and present is the presence of nuclear weapons.
In previous eras, great powers frequently fought wars to expand their influence and settle disputes. Countries could attempt to seize territory with little risk to their survival, even in defeat.
The sheer destructive potential of nuclear arsenals has changed this calculus. The Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction guarantees that if one country launches a nuclear weapon, it will quickly become the target of nuclear counterattack: annihilation for all sides.
Any major war between nuclear-armed nations now carries the risk of massive, potentially planetary, destruction. This makes direct conquest an irrational, even suicidal strategy rather than a calculated political maneuver.
And it makes Trump’s old-school imperial rhetoric particularly dangerous.
If the U.S. tried to annex foreign territory, it would almost certainly provoke serious international conflict. That’s especially true of the most strategic places Trump has threatened to “take over,” like the Panama Canal, which links 1,920 ports across 170 countries.
These imperialist threats, even if they’re not intended as serious policy proposals, are already ratcheting up global tensions.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino — a pro-American ally — has flatly ruled out negotiating with the U.S. over control of the Panama Canal. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, says its territory of Greenland is “not for sale.” And Palestinians in Gaza, for their part, fiercely reject Trump’s plan to move all of them out and turn their homeland into a “Middle East Riviera,” as have neighboring Arab countries, which could be expected to absorb millions of displaced Palestinians.
Rhetoric shapes perception, and perception influences behavior. When an American president floats acquiring foreign territories as a viable policy option, it signals to both allies and enemies that the U.S. is no longer committed to the international order that has achieved relative global stability for the past 75 years.
With wars raging in the Middle East and Europe, this is a risky time for reckless rhetoric.
Monica Duffy Toft is Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Kennan says
U.S. foreign policy has never ever been about “Pan- Internationalism”. It dominates whether through wars or proxi warism.
One of the greatest threats to certain countries and regions around the world is really just the literal ignoring of the sovereignty of territories. Never was that more apparent than in Gaza.
Listen, our country has been engaged in what I would describe as “Imperialism Light “ since the end of world war ll. We have tried to disguise it for several decades through the Korean War, Viet Nam, and seemingly endless wars in the Middle East such as “Desert Storm “, operation “Iraqi Freedom “ which was really just scapegoating Iraq because of September 11. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but thousands of American men and women lost their lives in a False flag war that was initiated out of a lie. The lie that stated erroneously that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They did not.
This imperialistic behavior really came about in May 1948 with the”Birth of Israel, which was really just the displacement of almost a million Palestinians from their homeland. We have been dealing with the ripple effect of repercussions ever since.
It seems the Trump administration is trying to take a much harder line to go back to a more 18th, 19th century Imperialism. A dictatorial stance that in some ways with sparked by former president, Joe Biden’s funding and support of an equally, if not more dictatorial leader in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he administers a full blown Genocide in Gaza.
We now have a slow historical roll toward a fast fascist walk to threats Canada, Greenland, and of course the ethnic cleansing of Gaza with the hopes of producing what Trump calls “The Riviera of the Middle East.
Well, here we go! Seemingly more concrete “no holds barred” attempt at imperialism by the present “ Wacko in chief “, but a really unsurprising climate, considering our love affair with “Amercan Exceptionalism”, The shining city on the hill and so many other American myths.
Ric Flair says
You are so right. You should leave the country immediately because its going to get much worse (in your mind) very very soon.
Foresee says
Make Canada the 51st State? Do they get 2 Senators? California and Canada have roughly equal populations @40 million. How many House of Representatives seats would the State of Canada get? (California has 52.)
Kennan says
Oh Ricky Ricky Ricky Ricky boy. How lost you are. Leave the country? That the best you got? Let me set you straight. I love my country, but the decisions that so many of our leaders make are absolutely corrupt and have no value for the American people.
Is this who we are? The country that preaches so vehemently that every man is created equal, yet turns around and turns a blind eye in the face of a genocide in the Middle East to show the world that one group of people is worth more than not just another, but everyone else?
The country that fought for its freedom against Great Britain to have their own sovereignty and future as an independent free nation, yet make threats to annex our neighbor Canada to the north and make it the 51st state? Yeah, we want Greenland too. We’ll buy them. They’ll be ours. let’s extort the president of Ukraine and tell him will help him, but only if we can take $500 billion worth of rare minerals to broker a cease-fire. let’s start a trade war with the European Union, as well as Canada and Mexico, which will cost us dearly economically.
If any other leader from any other country did this, we would be screaming from the church tops about the Illegality of it all. Everything we are doing now is foundationaly 180° in the opposite direction of everything this country has ever stood for.
Ed P says
Kennan,
Have you actually fleshed out the rare earth mineral deal? The geopolitics of the agreement might alter your outlook. Also why should the US be the only Ukrainian partner who wasn’t “loaning “ war support? All other G7 countries gave accelerated loans. They didn’t just donate aid to the Ukrainians. But we should?
Also you are a strong enough critical thinker to recognize the Canadian statehood brouhaha was a sarcastic poke at Trudeau. Trump’s derogatory comment was met with derision and was never literal. Doesn’t everyone really understand that? Honestly?
Finally, reciprocal tariffs could also take an unexpected turn, encouraging our “friends/allies” to reduce or eliminate their tariffs on U.S. products . No one needs to retaliate with higher tariff if they were truly willing to have “free” trade. Eliminate yours and we will do the same. Seem equitable.
Why can our foreign friends can impose tariffs but the United States can not?
Kennan says
Thank you, Ed. I will look into the nuances of the mineral deal. Affair assessment on your part. My only contention was how we went about doing things, and how we berated and embarrassed Zelinsky. We shouldn’t have to extort someone to make a deal. We consider ourselves Protectors of what’s right. However; lately we do exactly the opposite and threaten our neighbors. I understand the dig on Trudeau, but I don’t think too many of us have time to decipher the psychological whims of the “Red Baron”. I don’t think any psychoanalyst would want that job.
This politically divisive climate has proven only one thing to me, and that is that we are light years away from who we say we are. We are nowhere near the foundational spirit that made us the nation we used to be.
BillC says
EdP, in his usual snarky, “I know more than you do” tone, says “Trump’s derogatory comment was met with derision and was never literal. Doesn’t everyone really understand that? Honestly?”
Scientific American 3/24/25 says: “Few voters likely expected President Donald Trump in the first weeks of his administration to slash billions of dollars from the nation’s premier federal cancer research agency.
But funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health were presaged in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” a conservative plan for governing that Trump said he knew nothing about during his campaign. Now, his administration has embraced it.”
EdP is correct about one thing- you can’t believe a word Trump says.
BillC says
correction Scientific American 2/24/25, not 3/24/25.
Kennan says
Thanks, Bill!😎
Ed P says
Bill C,
I will try not to come off as snarky. Apologies . I spend hours daily reading and scouring the worlds news feeds to stay informed.
“ The doesn’t everyone understand? Honestly?” Was my non confrontational way of pointing out the absurdity of anyone with the desire to know the truth should have already realized it. To repeat Canadian Statehood makes one appear to be engaging in the hoax. Trump made a miscalculation and a poor excuse for a joke.
Sherry says
NO JOKE!
3/13 CBS News:
On Thursday, Mr. Trump questioned the international boundary between the U.S. and Canada, calling it an “artificial line” that somebody drew decades ago.
“Makes no sense,” he said.
This week, Mr. Trump imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and threatened to double the levies if the country did not suspend its new 25% surcharge on exports of electricity to several U.S. states.
Mr. Trump has justified the tariffs as protecting U.S. interests, though the existing trade agreement with Canada was negotiated and signed by him during his first term. The president suggested that Canada should acquiesce to his requests for annexation to alleviate the economic pressure.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Mr. Trump wrote Tuesday. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that.”
The Hill 3/16:
Kirsten Hillman, Canadian ambassador to the U.S., said on Sunday that her country takes its sovereignty “seriously” as President Trump appears to be holding firm in his ambitions to make Canada the 51st U.S. state.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Fox News anchor Jacqui Heinrich asked whether Canada’s new prime minister, former central banker Mark Carney, hasn’t connected yet with Trump because of the U.S. president’s remarks about making Canada the 51st state.
“I think we take seriously our sovereignty. We take seriously the will of Canadians, and over 91 percent of Canadians are, you know, not interested in a discussion around joining the U.S.,” Hillman said. “So I think he takes that seriously.
“And that’s not a slight to the president, and that’s not a slight to the American people,” she continued. “It’s an expression of our own patriotism and our own sense of who we are as a country.”
Ed P says
Ap 12/3/2024. Rob Giles.
Participants at dinner stated Trump was joking around and made the statehood comment in jest, just teasing.
Trump is pulling the mainstream media’s leg. Using it as a distraction.
Sherry says
Unfortunately you will likely not see this on Fox. A very quick Google search shows in these RECENT headlines that in 2025 trump’s bullying Canada is
” NO *#$%^&* JOKE”!
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › World › Canada
Mar 7, 2025 — This is the story of how Mr. Trudeau went from thinking Mr. Trump was joking when he referred to him as “governor” and Canada as “the 51st state …
Trump keeps talking about making Canada the 51st state. Is …
ABC News March 2025
https://abcnews.go.com › Politics › story
5 days ago — “Canada is not for sale and will never be the 51st state. Our supply sector is so intertwined, you can’t unscramble an egg,” he said an …
Trump’s remarks on Canada becoming the 51st state raise …
AP News
https://apnews.com › article › how-canada-could-beco…
Feb 13, 2025 — President Donald Trump has repeatedly said Canada should be the 51st U.S. state, effectively erasing the massive border the two nations …
Trump’s quest to conquer Canada is confusing everyone
Sherry says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuslL_WqH6Y
In trump’s own words in 2025!
BillC says
@EdP OK, let’s say “using it as a distraction” is true. Aside from what the participants at a private dinner to which they were invited by Trump thought, that’s hearsay which presumes knowledge of what is the mind of another and is inadmissible as evidence in a court. The use of a distraction implies an attempt to mislead or obfuscate. Your argument fails.
Ed P says
Bill C and others,
Did you spend the time and read the Associated Press article?
The guests who are quoted were the Canadian Officials, accompanying Trudeau.
Can’t make you accept the truth.
BillC says
@EdP so you’re saying the Canadians vouched for Trump’s honesty? Try to think outside the mental prison of MAGA.
Is it a pool day?
Kennan says
We just need to have a consistent moral principle. A moral principle that Donald J Trump does not have. When he says he wants to make Canada 51st state, he is simply throwing excrement at a wall to see if it sticks. He is absolutely serious in what he says, but he’s a game show host, a carnival Barker. If he is able to leverage anything that he says he can do.…. Believe me. He will do it. I think it’s highly entertaining when people say oh that’s just Donald being Donald. What? Are you dining with this guy? Do you have an orange Don phone? He doesn’t give a shit about you or your opinion. The only reason he even listens to a psychopath like Elon Musk is the fact that he’s so much richer than everybody else. It’s that simple.
Pogo says
@Words have meanings, for example
… trump is a liar; he is supported by shills, accomplices; but mostly — victims. Three of them married him.