Posted on 01/23/2025 9:10:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In the recent frenzy of commentary seeking to interpret U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s increasingly adamant comments about territorial expansion to Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, too much of the discussion has focused on matters of secondary importance.
These range from assessing whether Trump is merely engaging in a game of showmanship or distraction, to deciphering how those regions’ inhabitants feel about ceding territorial control to the United States, to determining how much it would cost to purchase their acquiescence.
From a policy perspective, though, more fundamental matters have gone surprisingly unaddressed, beginning with the question of whether any of these moves would even be good for the United States.
Since Trump’s first term, I have been struck by the degree to which his ideas seem stuck in the past. This is best exemplified by his obsession with trade balances and tariffs. The first of these is redolent of the Reagan era, while the second harks back to the U.S. protectionism of the early 20th century under leaders such as Herbert Hoover, who signed the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law, which sharply raised import duties to protect U.S. farmers and industry.
Old-fashioned national aggrandizement reached a peak even earlier, during Washington’s victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War. This led the United States to acquire Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, which few Americans today know was once a U.S. colony. The same year, moves were afoot in Congress to formalize control over Hawaii. Washington’s transition to a global power, as opposed to one primarily concerned with extending control by descendants of Europe over the contiguous United States, was well underway.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
At least America isn’t going to be boring anymore. Rockin’ the boat is the only way to travel.
The Deep State has spoken.
The status quo is no longer considered cool.
Looked up the source
Agreed.
Foreign policy by DEI bureaucrat.
That’s how we’ve always done it.
How dare Trump prove how inept we are!
Yeah the people clinging to the past are these clowns like French who still have not realized WW2 and the Cold War are over.
The dogmas they been clinging to for the last 80 years need to be re-thought
Trump is the one looking to the future not clinging to the failed past like Frenchy here
Deep State psyop.
The globalists are scared..good.
Trump recognizes the woke, globalist empire in DC is bankrupting the USA and corrupting US politics.
He also smartly understands future challenges will be economic and technical.
“who still have not realized WW2 and the Cold War are over.”
They’re on FR too.
Screw these dei globalist dipsh!ts.
What works, works. Age is irrelevant.
Wonder if Howard French is related to that fag David French, the supposed “conservative” pundit?
Not just the Deep State. The author of this piece is a black Columbia U. professor of journalism, meaning he is a woke, antisemitic communist.
Well, if President Trump is “opening Pandora’s Box,” maybe it is long past time for that mythical box to be opened. Let’s rummage around in there and see what pops up to benefit our country for a change, instead of benefiting all those globalist snobs currently gathered in Davos.
Buy Greenland? HOW???? we are already in enuf dept.
The Gulf of Mexico thing is just stupid.
We don’t need to take over the Panama Canal. Just given a long-term contract to operate it.
I think Trump is ALWAYS his own worst enemy.
Washington’s victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War?
Is that like when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
It’s okay ….. we know you were being /S
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