President Donald Trump greets Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at the West Wing entrance of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Gabriel B Kotico/Flickr)
During Donald Trump's first presidency, many Never Trump conservatives attacked him as an "isolationist" who failed to understand the importance of the United States' leadership role in global politics. Trump, however, took a much more interventionist turn after returning to the White House roughly 19 and one-half months ago. But according to Democratic insider Sidney Blumenthal — a former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton — Trump's "imperialism" is making the U.S. weaker, not stronger, around the world.
Blumenthal, in an op-ed for The Guardian, describes Trumpism as "the lowest stage of imperialism" — arguing that Trump showed how confused he is when he told members of the Alfalfa Club, "It's never been my intention to make Greenland the 51st state. I want to make Canada the 51st state. Greenland will be the 52nd state. Venezuela can be 53rd."
"Trump's imperialism of piracy and plunder is less of a system even than that of the earliest imperialism of 17th Century privateers raiding the Spanish Main, the divine right of kings, and monarchs dividing up the spoils as favors to create their lords and earls," Blumenthal writes. "His schemes of aggrandizement operating by threat and force are justified by no larger rationale, nothing as exalted as 'the white man’s burden' marauding wherever and however he can to seize resources. Describing his actions as some version of colonialism grants him a more orderly and coherent method than he possesses."
The Democratic insider adds, "His pillaging bears not the slightest resemblance to the highly organized administration of Queen Victoria's British empire. Trump's predation is calculated to wreck the long-established arrangements of international trade, law and cooperation created after the Second World War and the fall of colonial empires, whose guidelines he sees as obstructing his own profit and power."
Venezuela, according to Blumenthal, "became Trump's template for his piratical adventure."
"After swooping in on 3 January to capture its strongman, Nicolás Maduro, Trump promised a transition to democratic elections and that the U.S. would play a custodial role over Venezuelan oil for the benefit of its people," Blumenthal recalls. "Not long after Trump grabbed Maduro, he declared he needed to acquire Greenland and threatened a tariff war against Denmark and European allies to 'get Greenland, including right, title and ownership' … A month later, he bombed Iran."
Trump, according to Blumenthal, views himself "as omnipotent and omniscient" when, in reality, he is burning bridges with Canada and other valuable U.S. allies.
"When the world isn't pliable," Blumental says, "he must resort to greater force to reassure himself that the world acknowledges his self-image. The more he meets resistance to his fixed idea, the more pressure he must exert. He finds himself in a vicious cycle. His power hemorrhages, U.S. power dissipates and he spins in a whirlpool."
