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The Limits of U.S. Expansionism
Why Trump’s plan to expand the U.S. is doomed
In the past few weeks, Donald Trump has expressed his desire to expand the territory of the United States. Among the areas he would like to make a part of the U.S. include Greenland, parts of Canada, and the Panama Canal Zone. Donald Trump Jr. even traveled to Greenland to make sure it was still there.
The U.S. has a long history of expansionism that most Americans are only minimally familiar with. Historically, expansionism has never worked very well for very long in any country or kingdom. For instance, expansionism was one of the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. Rome’s territorial acquisition had outpaced its ability to govern, and the empire began to crumble on the edges first, and eventually throughout the entirety of Rome. Rome learned the hard way that people don’t like to be colonized by a foreign power.
There was a time when the sun never set on the British Empire. They literally had colonies spanning the globe, but like the Romans, they too met with resistance by those who didn’t want to be governed by a foreign power. From North America to Africa to the Far East, people fought back against this colonial rule by the British, resulting in expensive wars and the loss of both colonies and national pride. Today, England is a shadow of what it once…