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Apologies for the evening post, dear readers; Dr. Wife and I played a key role in balloon arch construction for a friend’s baby shower, and yours portly took an extended nap after overindulging on chicken wings and fried pickles.  Now that all of that succulence has gone straight to fat, I’m slowly rubbing my neurons together to hammer out this post.  —TPP

The excellent website Free Speech Backlash ran a lengthy essay of mine this past Thursday, 15 January 2026.  “Trump: Nationalist or Imperialist?” is an attempt to place the Nicolás Maduro arrest in the broader context of American diplomatic history, specifically as it pertains to our hemispheric policy.  That policy dates back to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which received an overhaul in the first years of the twentieth century during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.  The so-called Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine argued that, in order to prevent European intervention in Latin America, the United States would intervene instead.

President Trump is clearly aware of this history—thus his invocation of the “Donroe Doctrine,” his own revival of the Roosevelt Corollary.  Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere is increasing, and The Donald has to take action.  The action in Venezuela was not strictly about securing oil—we have plenty of it—but to prevent China from controlling major oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere.  The United States also sought to prevent China and Russia paying for that oil with their own currencies, as the purchasing of oil in US dollars ensures the dominance of our increasingly devalued currency.

China has also sought to make inroads into Panama, where the Panamanians currently run the canal that Roosevelt took drastic steps to ensure could be built—under American auspices.  One reason Trump wants to reclaim the Panama Canal is precisely because if we don’t, the Panamanians will likely fold to the Chinese.

Even Greenland, the most memeable of Trump’s neo-Monrovian ambitions, is an application of the Monroe/Donroe Doctrines.  The Arctic is emerging as a major trade route for global goods—the fabled Northwest Passage now a reality—and China has already made attempts to bring the Danish colony under its thumb.  The Danes lack the will and the capacity to improve and defend Greenland—or even to exploit its vast natural resources effectively—and The Donald sees this island as the key to securing dominance in the Arctic in the Western Hemisphere.

Indeed, it was Greenland that generated the most commentary (and heart-bleeding) in the comments section.  The most common refrain from the opposition was that the Greenlanders have the right to self-determination.  It’s an argument I’m sympathetic with in principle, but in Reality, Greenland has a population of fewer than 60,000 people—only barely double that of the municipal population of my hometown growing up in South Carolina.  If the world were a peaceful place, an independent Republic of Greenland could probably be viable as an extremely small (demographically) nation.  In the world of cutthroat geopolitics, with China and Russia on the rise and the Arctic opening up new strategic challenges and opportunities, an independent Greenland is a costly fantasy.

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