Trump Doesn’t Understand Empire

He Wants to Conquer WHO?

(“Blue Marble” (Earth) based on data from NOAA and NASA. Wikimedia Commons, 2013)

It’s not enough that incoming president Donald Trump wants to pack his administration with yes-men, even if doing so means surrounding himself with incompetents incapable of administering their departments or bringing the president the alternative perspectives he needs to do his job. Now, he has set his sights on many of America’s closest allies, threatening military and economic coercion that will convert them from valuable friends into resentful enemies.

To get to the specifics:

Panama

Panama was a product of the second stage of open American imperialism. In 1846, President James Polk negotiated a treaty with the government of New Granada that allowed for constructing a Panama Railway across the Isthmus of Panama.

(Panama, CIA, Wikimedia Commons, 2006)

One goal was to ensure that Great Britain would not dominate Central America. Another was to take the first step in acquiring control of a canal on the territory. This failed initially, but when disorder erupted between Panama and Colombia (sponsored by the U.S.), the United States prevented Colombian forces from moving across the isthmus to stop the Panamanian…