The new old colonialism

Without excuses and without subterfuge. One thing one can thank Donald Trump for is that he's upfront and doesn't hide his intentions. At the beginning of his term, he stormed into the US administration itself to install his own people and get rid of anyone who bothered him; then he dismantled the entire system of foreign aid, like USAID, and raided universities and research centers to impose his ideology against social rights; he has transformed immigration police into a paramilitary group for social control to internally impose the white supremacy of his followers, and now he is intervening directly on the international stage, demanding tributes, in the form of tariffs, worldwide, and claiming the territories he believes belong to him to secure his power. In his view, the entire Western Hemisphere, that is, half the world, is his. And he must surely find a gesture of generosity in allowing the other hemisphere to be divided up, primarily, by the Chinese and the Russians.

What, however, does the Western Hemisphere mean? He means all of the Americas, both North and South. The intervention in Venezuela, which is going well for him so far, won't be the only one, and this week he's already threatened to enter Mexico under the pretext of drug trafficking, and he threatened Canada with forced annexation some time ago. Colombia, Cuba, and Panama are also on the list. And he's clearly stated that he wants Greenland, a long-standing obsession of his, which he justifies both by its raw materials and, above all, because it allows him to control the Arctic passage and thus regain control of the seas that China increasingly holds. And it also includes a good part of Europe, which, judging by what we've seen so far, has neither the capacity nor the will to defend itself.

And it would be part of it, perhaps, because as things stand, it's frightening to think what he might have agreed to with Putin regarding the countries that were formerly part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Asia, for the moment, would remain in China's hands, despite the military and economic ties that the United States maintains with Japan and South Korea. Africa is increasingly Chinese, although the north is under American influence, and the recent interventions in Nigeria, Somaliland, and South Africa, via Israel, suggest that the US also wants to maintain its interests there, even though it has drastically withdrawn aid. And the Middle East, also via Israel, could end up under Washington's influence as well.

It seems, as has been said many times, a return to old colonialism, in which the great powers, at that time European, carved up countries without hesitation to seize their resources and impose their way of life, using military force and police repression. This is how all empires have been forged. From the Roman to the Ottoman, from the Spanish to the British. According to the vision of Trump and his many allies, postcolonial studies, like international law, only have a place as a subject within a history degree. We are still in the midst of this process, and the final outcome is not entirely clear, but Europe urgently needs to react if it doesn't want to end up as a colony—or, in the worst-case scenario, a vacation colony.