PNN – America first policy has clashed with American imperialism. No one, including Trump himself, seems to really know how things will turn out.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, in the past days and weeks, Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, has exposed new angles of the so-called “America First” policy by putting forward expansionist ideas, and of course, Washington’s allies are worried about his second term in office.
A few days ago, Trump first said that Canada should become the 51st state of the United States in a message that was apparently set up as a joke. He wrote in Truth Social: No one can answer why we subsidize Canada over $100 million a year? It doesn’t make sense! Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st US state.
He continued: They will save a lot in taxes and military protection. I think this is a great idea. State 51!!!
In the following days, he stated that the Republic of Panama receives “heavy fees” from American ships and vessels, and if this practice is not abandoned, the control of the Panama Canal should return to the United States of America.
In response to this claim, the President of Panama said that every square meter of this canal and its surrounding area belongs only to the country of Panama.
In addition, Trump repeated the desire he expressed in the first round of his presidency to buy the land of “Greenland”, which immediately met with the reaction of the Danish authorities.
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America first policy is an excuse for imperialist policy
Analysts say that Donald Trump does not actually intend to capture any of these areas. But his statements mean that the “America First” policy seeks to bully and threaten to encroach on the territory of other countries so that Trump can present a favorable image of himself to the citizens of his country.
Dave Lawler, an analyst of American affairs at Axios, writes about Trump’s statements: “This is part of Trump’s foreign policy scenario, or actually his “lack of foreign policy”. He utters controversial and harsh words, sometimes he turns them into action, but often he does nothing.
Lawler also writes that Trump has no faith in the “world order” and believes that it is in America’s best interests to balance with partners – or marginalize them if possible. However, even if his plans are not so serious, they cannot be ignored.
In an analysis of Trump’s statements, Politico wrote that if these threats are evidence that the “America First” policy also has interventionist components; they can also be seen as a reminder of Trump’s foreign policy, which is a combination of threats, confusion, arbitrary behavior and a degree of unpredictability.
Carney said that Trump, during his first term as president between 2017 and 2021, was able to force NATO members to increase their defense spending by threatening to withdraw from NATO. Trump’s unpredictability is a value in some scenarios, he said.
In addition, during his 4-year tenure, Trump sometimes threatened countries with nuclear attacks on the Twitter social network, which caused chaos and confusion among military commanders and other decision-making institutions of the United States.
The Axios website wrote about where Trump’s foreign policy might end: “America’s first policy has collided with American imperialism.” “No one, including Trump himself, really knows how things will turn out.”