The spectre of a formal American empire of ‘might makes right’ – an idea many mistakenly believed long dead – has reemerged with a vengeance after Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025. The reckless and dangerous force driving US power today is its revival of the formal violent empire as a legitimate basis of a new global order. Trump’s stated ambitions – annexing Canada, acquiring Greenland, carving out a “Trump Riviera” in Gaza, and tightening US control over Panama – are not just eccentric whims. They are part of a deliberate MAGA doctrine: an aggressive, expansionist strategy to redraw the world map through coercion, dealmaking, and outright domination. Global primacy by any means necessary…So much for a Trump agenda of military restraint and ending America’s “forever wars” which fooled many into believing Trump’s rhetoric about the Iraq war and war on terror. Trump has moved boldly back to the Bush era, embraced regime change, and invasion. But unlike most previous presidents, Trump offers no great vision: just a vengeful, naked power politics. George W. Bush, from Trump’s RINO nemesis to precursor Bush now appears not as Trump’s nemesis as part of the deep state and warmonger of the foreign policy establishment, but as precursor, part of the very same hypocrisy that reigns over US imperial mindsets, whether liberal, neoconservative, or MAGA conservative. The US acted as an empire during George W. Bush’s administration through unilateral military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan to reshape West Asia through the so-called War on Terror. The pre-emptive and preventative Bush Doctrine echoed historical imperial powers asserting dominance, bypassing international law , the UN, and popular opposition. The establishment of Guantanamo Bay detention and torture camp, covert CIA operations, and a network of over 800 military bases worldwide prioritised strategic interests – oil and regional control – over sovereignty. This was military imperialism if not colonial land-grabbing.Like Trump, Bush et al framed their actions as defensive, not colonial or neo-imperial. They claimed to be seeking security, not conquest, to protect the homeland after 9/11. Unlike traditional empires, the US didn’t annex territory. Neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz promoted America as a benevolent hegemon, spreading democracy and stability, not exploitation, akin to post-World War II rebuilding of Japan and Germany. Economic influence via globalisation, not territorial rule, was the hallmark of US power, it was argued.And as under the anti-intellectual Bush, anyone who dissented or even raised an enquiry about decision making was dismissed as a traitor. “In meetings, I’d ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!” cabinet minister Christine Todd Whitman had said.And recall these words reported in the same issue of the New York Times back in 2004: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Trump marching boldly back to the pastTrump’s rhetoric echoes historical imperial ambitions. Historically, the US expanded its territory through actions like the Louisiana Purchase (1803), annexing Texas (1845), and acquiring Alaska (1867), often justified by security or economic needs. Trump presides in this tradition, particularly the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which asserted US dominance in the Western Hemisphere to counter foreign influence. Trump’s stated concerns about Chinese and Russian presence near Greenland and the Panama Canal frame his moves as modern extensions of that doctrine, aimed at securing strategic and economic advantages.Trump’s refusal to rule out military action against allies like Panama and Denmark (a NATO member overseeing Greenland) suggests a willingness to prioritise US interests over sovereignty or international norms, a hallmark of imperial behaviour. His allies explicitly want to revive ‘Manifest Destiny,’ the 19th-century belief in White America’s divine right to expand. This rhetoric contrasts with post-World War II US policy, which leaned on soft power – alliances, trade, and cultural influence – rather than overt territorial grabs, a real if hidden empire. Trump’s approach, by contrast, is unapologetically direct, resembling the territorial imperialism of figures like Theodore Roosevelt, who oversaw the Panama Canal’s construction and projected American might globally.Trump revives civilising mission – based on CaesarismA century after its collapse in the ashes of World War I, the vision of dominion through conquest has returned – repackaged for the modern age. The white empire evangelists are back, cloaked in the rhetoric of “civilisation,” their old mission unchanged: to rule, remake, redeem or “cleanse” those they deem savages. This time, they wield not just armies, but memes, markets, social media and the machinery of a disillusioned state. Their goal? An empire by invitation or in terms familiar to gangsters, by making other states an offer they dare not refuse. As historian Honor Cargill-Martin observes, MAGA loyalists eulogise ancient Roman glory, valorise its militarised masculinity, and lament its collapse – blaming internal “weakness” for its downfall. The fixation is everywhere: Steve Bannon keeps a bust of Caesar on his desk, as if drawing power from the dictator’s shadow. Michael Anton, a key architect of Project 2025, writes under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus – a Roman consul who died in a suicidal charge, embodying the cult of sacrifice. Anton, a former Trump administration official and proponent of “Red Caesarism” – a term he popularised in his 2020 book The Stakes as a “form of one-man rule: halfway…between monarchy and tyranny” in which “Caesar’s word replaces constitutionalism and even, in the final analysis, law”. Elon Musk, Trump’s unofficial shadow, anoints himself “Imperator of Mars” and adopts the aesthetic of a Roman gladiator – conqueror of new frontiers.US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a red Model S Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House. Photo: AP/PTIAdd to the list Erik Prince, a mercenary and a Steve Bannon, Maga Breitbart Republican, who openly says that the US should “put the imperial hat back on”, take over some countries and directly run them. Prince is currently pitching for contracts for private security companies to manage the deportation process of the illegal immigrants. In 2017, writing for the New York Times, Prince proposed that the US continue to sustain its presence in Afghanistan with a contractor force of less than 6,000 mercenaries. His role models are the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company. In an interview, Prince pointed to the East India Company during British colonisation as a source of emulation for US policy in Afghanistan. In an op-ed in USA Today, Prince wrote, “This approach would cost less than 20% of the $48 billion being spent in Afghanistan this year.” Prince is now trying to move closer to the self-annointed King of America.The master plan: From tariff to currency wars?President Trump’s aggressive push for “economic detoxification”, doubling down on his radical overhaul of international trade and financial systems through tariff wars, against both allies and adversaries, is aimed at an ultimate agenda. Trump’s escalation of the trade war with China – by adding tariffs on Chinese goods of 125% due to China’s refusal to withdraw its 34% tariff on US exports – shows the US aims to totally subordinate China, through a 21st version of the unequal treaties of the 1840s. The next step is to coerce allies to help depreciate the dollar to make American industry “competitive”. According to Stephen Miran, current chair of the Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, these measures are designed to “successfully extract negotiating leverage – and revenue – from trading partners, it is quite likely that tariffs are used prior to any currency tools.”The objective, is to pressure key economic partners into negotiating a coordinated devaluation of the US dollar – a move reminiscent of the Plaza Accord, 1985, where US, Japan, West Germany, France, and the UK, sought to correct trade imbalances by depreciating the dollar against the yen and the deutsche mark. A similar Mar-a-Lago Accord is currently under preparation – awaiting signature.A fall in the US exchange rate would result in a rise in the exchange rates of all the other currencies. The issue is will the countries likely to be party to Mar-a-Lago accord agree to devalue the dollar as they had done in 1985? The accord resulted in bringing the dollar value down against the yen and mark by 40% during the two years after the deal was signed. However, the Plaza Accord adversely impacted the Japanese economy, halting three decades of unprecedented economic rise. Things are different in 2025. When Reagan signed the Accord, the US and the West had decided to de-industrialise and build a base for globalisation of finance. This time Trump wants to re-industrialise America. It is becoming clear that after the launch of a worldwide trade war, Trump is expected to launch currency wars. If he fails to achieve the objectives through these twin wars one can expect his administration to resort to military means to “save” America and his fragile reputation. He may create American-centred regional and other spheres of influence that run to Uncle Sam’s diktat.Taking America back(wards) If empire means territorial expansion and coercion, Trump’s vision fits, reviving a 19th-century playbook in a 21st-century context. Historians note parallels to William McKinley’s era, when the US seized the Philippines and Puerto Rico, though today’s globalised world complicates such moves. But the continental US is a study in savage colonial expansion. Yet if empire is about influence without formal control, the US already exerts that through its 800+ overseas bases and economic clout – Trump’s just making it louder and clearer. Talking loudly and carrying a big stick, simultaneously. Even if this all represents colonial-era bluster over real-world action – past attempts to buy Greenland in 2019 flopped, and Panama’s canal sovereignty is treaty-bound – the intent signals an imperial mindset, challenging the narrative of a post-imperial America. Whether this is serious policy or strategic trolling, it forces a reckoning with the US’s global role.Without any moral authority or vision, in a globalised world, Trump’s strategy for global primacy offers nothing but an even more lawless, violent American empire. America is on a warpath to subordinate the rest of the world. Atul Bhardwaj is Visiting Research Fellow at School of Policy and Global Affairs, City St George’s, University of London.Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London, a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a columnist at The Wire. He is an International Fellow at the ROADS Initiative think tank, Islamabad, and author of several books including Foundations of the American Century. He is currently writing a book on the history, politics, and powers of the US foreign policy establishment.