I read a misinformed article in the New York Times on February 27, which was written by Edward Wong. The article’s title was “Trump’s Foreign Policy: Resurrecting Empire,” which I thought was woefully inaccurate and ahistorical.
I have unfortunate news for Mr. Wong. The US has been an empire since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, with no need for “resurrecting,” excluding the Philippines, which became a free sovereign country on July 4, 1946. Thankfully, the U.S. is a far more benevolent empire than either the Roman or Mongol Empires.
The ill-advised withdrawal and humiliating abandonment of Afghanistan, especially the Bagram airbase north of Kabul on August 30, 2021, was only a peripheral loss to the American Empire.
Wong’s article was mistaken and a far-left overreaction to the existence of the American Empire, when he failed to mention that we inherited the British Empire or Pax Britannica at the end of World War II in 1945.
That date was the true beginning of Pax Americana.
Wong completely failed to mention that the American Empire under Reagan effectively eliminated communism in both Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia in 1991. In addition, the American empire since then has mostly contained Communist China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
However, Cuba’s and Nicaragua’s days as remaining Communist countries may soon be coming to a quick end in 2026 after the end of Maduro’s Venezuela.
It must be remembered that within the US, we are definitely a republic, but abroad, we are indeed an empire. To rephrase and modernize Scotsman John Wilson in 1829, aka Christopher North, the sun never sets on the American Empire.
Our empire presently includes Guantánamo Bay, Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Other minor territories include Wake Island, Midway Island, Palmyra Atoll, the strategic UK/US island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and other territories or military bases too numerous to list.
In the future, I suspect that the US will peacefully add more territory or air bases to our empire, which includes the moon, or share sovereignty with such countries or territories in Greenland or parts of Arctic Canada. This will enable both Canada and Greenland to be fully integrated within the planned upcoming Golden Dome.
However, what truly makes the US such an expansive and huge empire is that we have approximately 750 military bases in at least 80 foreign countries and territories worldwide. This has been true for the past seventy years since the beginning of Stalin’s Cold War in 1945.
Most of our military bases exist in such strategic areas as Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Italy, including the UK, Bulgaria (i.e., Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport), and most other thirty-two NATO nations, including ungrateful Spain.
As of March 5, Britain has reversed its decision not to allow the US to use both the Fairford and Diego Garcia air bases. Now, the US can use these bases only for “defensive purposes” to attack Iran. Time will tell if that comes to pass, especially if this war lasts more than thirty days.
Fortunately, the US also has about twenty air and naval bases in the entire Persian (Arabian) Gulf extending from Kuwait to the United Arab Emirates.
Trump’s comedic and sarcastic speeches in 2025 about acquiring Canada as a 51st state were meant to be nothing more than bombastic, irritating insults directed initially towards former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and current Prime Minister Mark Carney. Trump delights in upsetting domestic and foreign politicians, especially on Truth Social, and I seriously doubt that the US has any desire to acquire Canada.
Somewhat like Canada, the president’s statements to acquire the Panama Canal are currently nothing more than blarney and bluster with just enough scare tactics to have forced Panama to oust Communist China from the Canal Zone on February 24. Trump has no desire to see China control any parts of the canal or allow it to become part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.
Any future noncompliance would probably involve a forced return of the Panama Canal to the US.
To be continued
Robert L. Maronic
