WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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SOURCE: GUARDIAN- AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS
Rejecting international law and human rights, Trump is seeking to establish a global order dominated by the US, Russia and China, where weaker nations are exploited for resources. His foreign policy strategy reflects colonialist ideologies, reviving expansionist ambitions through economic pressure, territorial claims and military influence. In Ukraine, he is enabling Russian aggression for financial gain, while in Gaza he is ignoring humanitarian considerations in favour of strategic alliances, writes the Observer’s foreign policy commentator Simon Tisdal in today’s analysis.
Donald Trump’s imperial presidency is a miserable and shabby show. The emperor has no suit to cover his false power. Without a crown and royal robes, he resorts to vulgar ties and baseball caps. His throne is just a stage for abuse, his palace a modest, whitewashed house, and his courtiers mere petty crooks. His royal decrees – executive orders – have been legally challenged. And while they rage like King Lear, his critics have been publicly crucified or thrown to the lions on Fox News.
Yet despite its crudely plebeian ordinariness, Trump’s global project is neo-imperialism – his trademark and most serious crime. He sells it against the course of history and human experience, as if invasion, genocide, racial inequality, economic exploitation and cultural conquest had never been attempted before. If it wasn’t already clear, now it is – he wants to rule the world.
Trump’s threatening claims to Canada, Panama and Greenland revive the elitist fantasies of Elon Musk’s grandfather and the Technocracy Inc movement, a right-wing populist initiative from the 1930s that sought to unite North and Central America under American supremacy – “Technocracy”. The mentality that feeds such claims is deeply embedded in the national consciousness. It is a mixture of the Monroe Doctrine, “manifest destiny,” and the white man’s burden. It is evil, it is dangerous—and it is coming back.
In 1823, President James Monroe, defending himself against predatory European powers, defined what Vladimir Putin would today call America’s “sphere of influence.” His doctrine was later used to justify American interventions in Latin America. Manifest destiny was the belief, popularized after 1845, that the young republic was divinely destined to extend its rule and “civilizing influence” across the continent and the Pacific region.
The main victims were the Native Americans of North America, who were exterminated and displaced. Manifest destiny also helped to spread slavery as new state entities joined the Union. The later colonization of the Philippines, Cuba, and Hawaii was a natural extension. In 1899, Rudyard Kipling, in his notoriously racist poem “The White Man’s Burden,” urged Americans to follow the example of the British Empire and take global responsibility for governing “newly captured, gloomy peoples.”
That phrase now perfectly describes Trump’s view of the two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, whom he wants to deport to Somaliland or some other “promised land.” Migrants huddled on the Mexican border face the same white man’s prejudice.
Would Trump attempt to ethnically cleanse the fair-skinned, predominantly Christian citizens of war-torn Ukraine? Everyone knows the answer to that question.
While it lacks the grandeur and grandeur of older forms of imperialism, Trump’s resurgence of imperial power bears the same ugly hallmarks of its predecessors. As before, it is all about power and money, military force and economic pressure (such as tariffs), control of territory, racial and cultural supremacy, and a deeply hypocritical morality. It is causing a storm at home and poisoning every aspect of foreign policy.
Trump may not be actively involved in the killing and expulsion of Ukraine’s indigenous people, but he is doing everything he can to deprive them of their ancestral rights. In a farcical negotiation process, he cedes territory to Putin, intimidates the leaders in Kiev to the point of bitter capitulation, and then lays claim to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Now he wants their nuclear power plants. This is not about peace. This is about profit.
In Gaza, Trump is robbing the dead before they are even dead. Basic legal norms, let alone humanity, have been completely discarded. He doesn’t care that Israeli genocidal perpetrators have killed some 50,000 Palestinians. He wants the coastline for free, the surviving owners expelled, so he can build a luxury resort.
“Welcome to the Rafah Riviera, the Nakba-on-the-Mediterranean by the Trump Organization. Enjoy your stay.”
Trump and his advisers envision three neo-imperial superpower blocs – the US, Russia and China – united in their disregard for the UN Charter, international law and human rights, acting as they please in self-assigned spheres of influence. In this tumultuous era, Russia is a lucrative business partner, while European and Asian allies must fend for themselves. As always, developing countries are exploited for their resources. Paraphrase George Canning, The Old World Becomes the Prey of the New.
Imperialism has evolved since the days of battleships and missionaries. Today, any sense of a higher calling and lofty goal has disappeared.
In the wider Middle East, Trump is infinitely more interested in forging a US-Saudi-Israeli alliance on security, energy and investment than in ending the Palestinian tragedy. A significant obstacle in that path is Iran, another historic victim of colonialism. In his latest courtship of Putin, Trump sought Russian help in suppressing his ally. Mullahs beware: there is a smell of betrayal in the air.
Like all great-power bullies throughout history, Trump chooses easy targets. Danish Greenland and Panama are examples of weak, undefended countries that 19th-century European empires seized in Africa. On the other hand, the normally boisterous Trump is unusually quiet when it comes to China, America’s most powerful rival of the 21st century.
Beyond trade wars, his caution hints at a future strategic deal with Beijing. Like Putin, President Xi Jinping is playing it cool with Trump for now. These petty autocrats share much in common: authoritarianism, national expansionism, unscrupulous greed. So why fight? All three can be winners, and to the winners belong the spoils. Watch out, Taiwan—you’ll be the meat in an indigestible US-China sandwich.
Imperialism has evolved since the days of warships, missionaries, and unequal treaties. Gone is any semblance of a lofty mission or noble purpose. American pioneers, who followed the doctrine of “manifest destiny,” truly believed they were serving a just cause. British colonial administrators thought they were carrying out God’s (and Queen Victoria’s) mission. Today’s conquerors harbor no such illusions.
Yet Trump presents himself as a compassionate, noble peacemaker. So will he bring peace to desperate Sudan, Myanmar, or Congo? Will he stop those “terrible wars” too? No, he won’t. Such places are not on his scratched-out maps. There is no money or prestige in it for him. And this “white man’s burden” does not apply to the losers. In the new, chaotic imperial age, megalomania erases all rules.
