Is America entering a new age of empire? The week that changed global politics

Is America entering a new age of empire? The week that changed global politics

• Trump's actions revive US gunboat diplomacy, mirroring early 20th-century moves
• Military force used for power and resource acquisition, not nation-building
• Allies alarmed by Trump's intent to seize Venezuelan oil and Greenland.

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In January 1899, an American gunboat steamed up Venezuela’s Orinoco River carrying a diplomat and a message. The USS Wilmington was there to show the flag, protect commercial interests, and, if necessary, impress local officials with its firepower. The envoy on board, Francis Loomis, later wrote with satisfaction about demonstrating the ship’s machine guns to visiting dignitaries.

More than a century later, history suddenly feels less distant.

In the space of a week, President Donald Trump ordered a swift military operation to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, openly declared his intention to take control of the country’s oil, and renewed his push to acquire Greenland, making clear that military force is not off the table. For allies and adversaries alike, it has felt like the return of something old and unsettling: gunboat diplomacy, CNN reported.

A throwback to another era

Trump’s language and actions have sent historians and diplomats reaching for comparisons from America’s imperial past. In the early 20th century, the United States repeatedly intervened in Latin America and the Caribbean to protect commercial interests, in what became known as the “Banana Wars”. US Marines occupied Haiti and Nicaragua. American troops landed in Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Mexico’s port city of Veracruz.

Even earlier, the US Navy patrolled China’s Yangtze River to safeguard American missionaries and oil companies during years of civil war and chaos. That world, many believed, was gone.

But Trump’s unapologetic framing has brought it roaring back into view.

In an interview with The New York Times, he did not bother to dress up the Venezuela operation in the language of democracy or human rights. “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil,” he said. It was a line that would have sounded jarring in the era of Iraq and Afghanistan, when US leaders insisted intervention was never about resources.

The ghost of Smedley Butler

Few critics captured America’s earlier interventions more sharply than Major General Smedley Butler, a twice-decorated Marine who later described himself as “a gangster for capitalism”. He famously listed the countries where he had helped secure US business interests at gunpoint, from Nicaragua to China.

For decades, Butler’s critique has hovered over US foreign policy debates, especially during the long wars after 9/11. Those conflicts, in Iraq and Afghanistan, became known as “forever wars”, draining public patience and political capital.

Trump rose to power in part by denouncing those entanglements. Yet what he appears to be offering instead is not restraint, but something different: short, sharp uses of force to secure power, territory and resources, without any pretence of nation-building.

Not occupation, but acquisition

The operation in Venezuela looked nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan. There was no prolonged campaign, no occupation force left behind. It was a raid, a removal, and a declaration of intent.

That may reassure parts of Trump’s political base. But it is deeply alarming to America’s allies, especially in Europe. A US president openly talking about taking Greenland, an autonomous part of Denmark and a NATO ally, is not just rhetorical provocation. It challenges the basic assumptions of the post-war order.

Trump may not want to build states. But he has made clear he wants to acquire assets.

A world tilting backward

The deeper shock is not just about Venezuela or Greenland. It is about the direction of travel. The last two decades were defined by messy, idealistic interventions that failed. This new phase looks colder, more transactional and more openly imperial.

One senior European diplomat put it bluntly: this is not the end of American power. It is a return to a more naked form of it.

The “forever wars” may be over. But something older and more unsettling may be taking their place.