The World Isn't Ready for Trump's Expansionist Foreign Policy

Yahoo

27-01-2025

Prior to last week, no U.S. president had ever used his inaugural address to threaten a foreign country. That changed when President Donald Trump, just minutes after he took the oath of office, declared, 'China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back.'
As Trump often speaks off the cuff, it can sometimes be hard to separate his bombastic statements and clearly exaggerated claims from his actual policy plans. Though he had made similar comments about the Panama Canal in December, it was unclear at that time how serious or focused he was about his interest in the issue. On social media, he posted AI-generated fake photos of the U.S. flag in the Panama Canal territory that suggested he was trolling for likes more than making a real policy proposal. When he later suggested he would not rule out the use of military force in Panama, it was an off-hand response to a reporter's leading question that included the use of economic coercion as an option.
In contrast, the inaugural address was a prepared speech. The comments about Panama were planned well in advance and likely reviewed by several of the president's advisers. Trump meant exactly what he said.
Even without the military threat, the U.S. has plenty of leverage over Panama. On the economic front, Panama is part of DR-CAFTA, a regional free trade agreement, and the U.S. is its leading trading partner. Panama uses the U.S. dollar as its currency, meaning that Washington can effectively control and restrict the Panamanian economy with sanctions, which would have greater impact than they would against a country that has its own currency.
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But Trump chose to use language in his inaugural address that clearly crosses the line into a military threat, to the extent that Panama urged United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to refer the matter to the Security Council as a violation of the U.N. Charter's prohibition on 'the threat or use of force' against the sovereignty of another member state.
Prior to the inauguration, it was possible to interpret Trump's comments aimed at Panama as a warning shot to other countries in the hemisphere about the sort of hardball negotiations to come. But Trump's three stated reasons in the inaugural address for wanting to retake the Panama Canal make it clear that this actually represents a significant shift in his foreign policy posture.
First, he cited the amount of money, time and lives that the U.S. spent in building the canal in the early 20th century, suggesting that those building costs give the U.S. a historical right to control the territory. This goes to a longstanding complaint that the administration of former President Jimmy Carter, who died late last year, should never have agreed to cede control of the canal to Panama. Whether or not that was the correct historical decision, it is enshrined in a Senate-confirmed treaty and cannot be undone by the U.S. president acting on his own. Trump's threats signal a potential willingness to try to undo Carter's efforts and revive the historical policies of the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary. It should signal to the rest of the hemisphere that Trump believes the U.S. president can impose his will on their domestic politics, even overriding the Congress in the process.
Second, Trump claims that the independent authorities administering the canal overcharge U.S. ships from both the private sector and the U.S. Navy, and otherwise treat them poorly in ways he did not specify. Panama is correct in noting that ships from all countries are charged the same rates and that U.S. Navy ships are in fact the only military vessels that receive preferential treatment in terms of expediting their passage through the Canal. Still, this complaint by Trump demonstrates not only his tendency to view international relations as a business negotiation, which we've seen before, but also a newfound willingness to distort the facts in seeking a better deal, even when the current arrangement is fair.
Third, Trump claims that China controls a significant portion of canal infrastructure in a way that threatens global shipping and U.S. national security. While a Chinese company operates the ports near both ends of the canal, China does not control the Panama Canal. In fact, to the contrary, Beijing still has far less influence in Panama than Washington. But no matter how this particular issue in Panama develops, Trump's comments point to the fact that concerns over China's presence and perceived influence in the Western Hemisphere as part of great power competition, which permeated his first term and continued under former President Joe Biden's administration, will now become even more expansive under the new Trump administration.
However, these three purported reasons Trump used to justify 'taking back' the Panama Canal don't tell the full story. There is a larger and more aggressive agenda brewing in Trump's second term that the world should take notice of.
This fourth reason is unstated in the comments on Panama but has permeated Trump's discourse on foreign policy since he defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Simply put, Trump's rhetoric has shifted from isolationist to expansionist. He campaigned on the dubious claim that he was the only modern president not to have started a new foreign conflict, something he repeated in a post-inauguration interview. But since the election he has also discussed buying or taking over Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, in addition to retaking the Panama Canal. And when asked about the potential use of U.S. special operations forces inside Mexican territory to target drug-trafficking cartels, he raised his eyebrows and gave a noncommittal answer—'Stranger things have happened'—that could easily be interpreted as suggesting such an operation may be in the works.
As if to double down on the Panama comments during the inaugural address, the subsequent section of Trump's speech promised policies to 'expand our territory' and 'pursue our manifest destiny.' While that last comment referred to planting the U.S. flag on Mars, the concept of Manifest Destiny goes back to the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century that resulted in the country's largest territorial gains, including the violent seizure of Mexican territory through war. Trump is now embracing a mixture of strategies that include bargaining, economic coercion and military force to once again grow the size of the United States.
This is an issue that is larger than just the Panama Canal. The hemisphere and the world are not ready for what it means for the U.S. president to be interested in territorial expansion. Even for those who have been critical of Washington's past actions, including acting unilaterally and using military force in ways that many nations view as a violation of sovereignty, the idea that the U.S. would engage in territorial conquest is a step beyond. Depending on how Trump proceeds with these plans, it could place the U.S. on par with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. It would also grant legitimacy to any potential moves China makes in the future to take territory with its military.
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has declared that the country will defend every inch of its sovereignty, including over the canal. But within Panama's political establishment and media, there is a certain level of disbelief that this debate is even taking place. Even for a country that the U.S. invaded and whose leader it deposed, arrested and imprisoned just 35 years ago, it can be hard to take the threat of a modern U.S. invasion and occupation of the Canal Zone seriously. It's as if it comes from a different era.
Yet, Trump's glib comments about his willingness to use the U.S. military in the Western Hemisphere should not be treated as too absurd or anachronistic to believe. To the contrary, Panama, its neighbors and the world should be taking Trump's calls for a U.S. return to Manifest Destiny and territorial expansion very seriously. They signal a huge shift in the guiding principles of U.S. foreign policy, and other countries should not say they were not warned. Trump told them so himself in his very first speech of his second term.
James Bosworth is the founder of Hxagon, a firm that does political risk analysis and bespoke research in emerging and frontier markets, as well as a global fellow at the Wilson Center's Latin America Program. He has two decades of experience analyzing politics, economics and security in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The post The World Isn't Ready for Trump's Expansionist Foreign Policy appeared first on World Politics Review.