Colonisation is dead; long live colonisation. The new-again president of the United States, Donald Trump, is convinced that the American imperium has been weakened by capitulation to liberal democracies by concession-oriented presidents. He wants to take the US back to pre-Second World War times when President Franklin Roosevelt kept aloof from the troubles of Europe and Britain. Ironically, those were the halcyon days of the British and European empires, whose decline in the late 1940s coincided with the rise of the American empire. Irony died as more than 4,00,000 American soldiers perished on the battlefields of Europe, an astronomical figure compared to Afghanistan and Iraq later.
Today, Trump is the uncrowned monarch of the US who surveys all. The elected sovereign craves to expand his empire without umpires, through mergers and acquisitions. His dreams are his missions. His dil maange more.
As capitalism proves its money power again, Trumpitalism comes up tops. Trumpian omnivorousness has acquired international dimensions. While his enemies accuse him of shooting from the lip—he wants to buy Greenland, take over the Panama Canal and convert Canada into the 51st state of the US—there is a method to his madness.
The 47th president’s eyes are set upon war-torn Gaza. Though his stunned senior staff tried to walk back his statement that the US will “take over” Gaza and develop it into a Mediterranean riviera, Trump had no problem channelling his inner property magnate. In the presence of visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House, he announced his Gaza plan: “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area… do a real job, do something different... This was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”
Trump’s power broker and property developer son-in-law Jared Kushner, his special envoy to West Asia during his first term and the force behind the ‘Abraham Accords’ that aim to normalise relations between Israel and Arab countries, said, “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable if people would focus on building up livelihoods.” In 2024, Kushner had distilled the entire Arab-Israeli conflict into “nothing more than a real estate dispute between Israelis and Palestinians”, exemplifying corporate geopolitik that could shape global discourse.
It wasn’t the first time that the US president was expressing his expansionist adventurism. He uses social media platforms to announce his executive actions and policy framework, commenting on Truth Social, which he owns, that the US pays “hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidise Canada”, and “without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable country”. On Greenland, Trump declared, “I don’t really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen because it’s for the protection of the free world.”
In 2019, he had said that US control was an “absolute necessity” for strategic reasons and global security. This time he moaned, “China is running the Panama Canal that was not given to China, that was given to Panama foolishly (by Jimmy Carter in 1977), but they violated the agreement, and we’re going to take it back, or something very powerful is going to happen.” Trump suspects the canal’s management has been taken over by Chinese companies that are fleecing American ships by levying exorbitant tariffs. The threat worked: the US state department announced that Panama had agreed to allow free passage to American ships through the 82-km canal.
Trump has also revved up dollar imperialism by focusing on keeping the greenback as the main currency for international trade and commerce. It’s his trump card—the most powerful weapon to dominate, dictate and direct the international economic ecosystem. For the past few years, a China-led group of nations has been trying to replace it with other currencies to delink global trade from the US-controlled financial architecture. The American establishment feels that BRICS—especially the bloc’s original members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—are working on an alternative currency, a charge India has always denied.
Trump warned, “The idea that the BRICS countries are trying to move away from the dollar, while we stand by and watch, is OVER... We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar, or they will face 100 percent tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy. They can go find another sucker nation. There is no chance that BRICS will replace the US dollar in international trade, or anywhere else, and any country that tries should say hello to tariffs and goodbye to America!”
Trump’s MAGA is now MAGGA—Make America Globally Great Again. He has unleashed an optimal mix of conventional tricks of the trade with modern internationalism. POTUS and his corporate lackeys are taking a leaf from the British empire. Perhaps they have been told that dominating trade and territory using tradecraft and commerce is the best winning model. In the 1600s, the British East India Company landed in India by sea and became the ruler of a large swathe of it by 1757. The British government enacted numerous laws to authorise revenue collection. In 1883, a governor general was appointed to administer British India.
Trump’s acquisitive aspirations may not be an exact replica. But he has extensively deployed powerful oligarchs like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to exclusively connect the world through their platforms. Not only are they influencing voters’ minds, but are also actively involved in regime change through hidden technological tools. Since most countries roll out the red carpet for them, Trump uses them for various strategic missions. Musk is dealing with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, Russia’s Putin and West Asian leaders. He has organised a cabal of jetset gig giants, dodgy diplomats and mighty military as the contemporary substitute for the British empire. A new global empire on which the Sun would never set is the Trumperialist dream to control the world.
Prabhu chawla
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
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