(written by Terry MacNeil, on March 15-16, 2025)

During Donald Trump’s first term as US President, he was so nervous and unconfident – he’d agree to do whatever his advisors advised (I heard he would always go with the advice of whoever was the FINAL advisor in the long line of advisors that would be giving him advice on an issue). Now that we are in Trump’s second term as President, he’s WAY more assertive/confident, and is committed to carrying out the shit he’s been preaching for years.

But first, we must look at the “New Imperialism” – as defined by Marxist intellectuals like David Harvey (who wrote a book about it, titled The New Imperialism, which I have not read yet) and other Marxist intellectuals like Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (who co-wrote a brilliant book I did read, titled The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire). Is there a USA empire? And if there is, is it global? Panitch and Gindin emphasized that the USA has an “Informal” Global Empire – instead of militarily occupying every corner of the globe (as a “Formal” Global Empire would), the USA instead occupied vast swaths of the globe with its multinational corporations (MNCs, which resulted in an “economic occupation” rather than a “military occupation” by the USA). Though it must also be emphasized, the USA has a HUGE number of military bases located around the World – so the USA felt the need to retain an element of a “Formal Empire” aka “Old Imperialism” to provide the muscle to protect its MNCs, protect its trade routes, and protect friendly/vassal countries around the World (while also militarily surrounding its rivals/enemies).

With the era of “globalization”, the USA was able to have a GLOBAL Empire (after the collapse of the USSR) where the World’s manufacturing was dispersed globally (usually to the places where production costs were cheapest, and workers’ rights were nonexistent). But in more recent years, there is an increasingly strong international right-wing backlash against globalization – and we have seen China ascend to become an economic rival of the USA. Under “globalization”, there was NEVER supposed to be a rival of the USA – especially not an economic one. Russia will never be an economic rival of the USA – but China sure is.

Now we come back to Trump – a guy who thinks American tariffs (or trade sanctions) will result in every fantasy he wants to come true. To quote William Appleman Williams (who was quoted by Alfred W. McCoy in his great book In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power) the “grand illusion” most Americans are under is “the charming belief that the United States could reap the rewards of empire without paying the costs of empire and without admitting that it was an empire.” The only thing imposing tariffs on the USA’s allies, and trade sanctions on its rivals will do – is speed up the end of the US Empire.

If you tried explaining how the “New Imperialism” aka “Informal Empire” works to Trump – he’ll never get it. He believes the New Imperialism results in the economic exploitation of the USA by THE REST OF THE WORLD – and that the USA gets NO BENEFIT from it. So he’s regressing back to the “Old Imperialism” forms of empire – by wanting to annex territory (such as Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal). It’s clear the USA wants Canadian resources – especially water (one day they’ll say “Sell us your water, or we’ll take it by force”). Trump wants to bring ALL manufacturing back to the USA – so it will have all the resources it needs at its disposal to wage a military war with China (and any other rivals) and for American workers (but no one else on Earth) to get well-paying factory jobs (which won’t happen). Ⓐ