Trump Really Wants to Rule the Western Hemisphere

In the wake of the successful decapitation strike on Venezuela by U.S. special forces, Donald Trump has been talking a lot about attacking Mexico, buying Greenland (while not ruling out an invasion), and making Canada the 51st State. He looks as though he will make good on his promise to take military action in Mexico, signing an executive order declaring certain cartels as terrorist organizations and stating again that “land strikes” are coming. Many outlets and pundits have declared that these things are either bluster, impossible, or mere diversions; my assessment is that they are not.

Trump doesn’t really joke. He says outlandish things to see what sort of reaction he gets. In this case, Republicans are supporting all of these proposals while the American public barely notices because “that’s just Trump being Trump.” In truth, Trump rarely drops an idea, even a bad one. He was intent on buying Greenland during his first term and never let it go. Thus, when he talks about acquiring new territory for the U.S., or using military force in Mexico, he is serious. The actions in Venezuela should have dispelled any notion that remaining U.S. institutions will prevent Trump from carrying through, no matter how corrupt, unethical, immoral, or illegal his actions are.

To execute any of these ideas he will first have to secure the support of Congress, abrogate treaties (such as leaving NATO), and remove any possible opposition within the Pentagon. Trump has the near full support of Republicans in Congress for anything he does; there is no effective opposition left. He has promised to leave NATO and break treaties. Trump and Hegseth have also sacked most top military leaders within the Pentagon who might say “no.” Unlike his first term, there are no institutionalists left in his inner circle. Gone are the likes of Generals Mattis and Kelly, replaced by the likes of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chief of Staff Stephen Miller who are fully supportive of an American mafioso empire.

In short, he is clearly laying groundwork to engage in aggressive, expansionistic policy over the next two years. The U.S. attack on Venezuela turned out to be nothing but a cynical grab at Venezuelan oil revenue. He appears content to leave the newly inaugurated, avowed communist Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez in power so long as she sends Venezuelan oil revenues to a slush fund managed by the executive branch with no congressional oversight, though he is referring to himself as the “interim president” on Truth Social. Functionally, Trump has reduced the U.S. to a protection racket by a mob-state with nuclear weapons.

What comes next is likely to be a mix of Lebensraum (meaning “living space,” or the Nazi German policy of expansionism), Anschluss (the Nazi policy of uniting German-speaking people, militarily), the hybrid Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and Wag the Dog (but with a distinctly internet age twist). The following is a brief discussion of what each of these four operations would look like.

MEXICO

Most GOP candidates in the 2024 presidential primaries were nearly united in their belief that the U.S. should take military action inside of Mexico, whether via air strikes, special operations, or even conventional force incursions into Northern Mexico. Trump has taken the initial step to give him unilateral authority to use force inside of Mexico, and other Latin American states, by declaring cartels as terrorist organizations. All of these military options are likely to turn out badly for the U.S.

Mexico lacks the military ability to stop air strikes. However, this is almost certain to unite the cartels, the Mexican government, and the Mexican public against the U.S., while accomplishing mostly random destruction and causing civilian casualties as collateral damage. The U.S. could send in Special Forces Teams to carry out targeted raids (as we did against bin Laden in Pakistan, or in Venezuela). However, this runs the risk of turning into a “Black Hawk Down” or “Benghazi” scenario where limited U.S. forces are overwhelmed by well-armed locals affiliated with the cartels. Invading Mexico with conventional forces would almost certainly turn into a brutal, protracted, and unwinnable counter-insurgency campaign against the cartels, the Mexican government, and locals angry with the U.S.

The other option is air strikes, which is what Trump may be alluding to when he talks about “land strikes.” However, war games suggest this would only disrupt cartels briefly, while having little impact on drug flows into the U.S. It would likely result in Mexico cutting off cooperation with the U.S. on a host of issues and may even result in them shutting the border down, which would cause economic chaos to the tune of roughly $800 billion in lost GDP per year. The cartels themselves have enormous resources, and the ability to make a bad situation worse. If the U.S. were to conduct military action in Mexico, retaliation into the southern U.S. akin to Hamas’s October 7 raid into Israel isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. This would easily draw the U.S. into tit-for-tat raids and counter raids that might resemble the 1916-17 campaign against Pancho Villa.

GREENLAND

Trump has long coveted Greenland. While he claims it is about national security and Russia, reality tells a very different story. The National Security Strategy no longer lists Russia or China as a threat or adversary, instead concentrating on Europe. The U.S. could also put as many troops as they want virtually anywhere in Greenland today under existing NATO agreements. Like Venezuela, this is about enriching Trump and his oligarch supporters.

Greenland is vast: It covers more than three times the land area of Texas. It also has significant potential petroleum and mineral resources to be exploited (though doing so would be difficult and expensive), and it could make people allowed to exploit them extremely rich (along with Trump, who absolutely would take bribes to hand out rights). It also has legal and military value, giving access to offshore resources in the Arctic Circle. The U.S. has maintained a base in Northern Greenland (known as Thule or Pituffik) since World War II. Taking Greenland seems to fit with his obsession with an American Lebensraum in North America and being remembered as a strong and great leader who expanded their empire, like Vladimir Putin, Xi, or Andrew Jackson.

Why Trump wants Greenland is less important than understanding how he aims to get it. The foremost thing to remember is that Greenland is not for sale, at any price according to Denmark. The 57,000 people living in Greenland do not want to be a part of the United States. Trump, a firm believer that anyone can be bought, is reportedly considering a one-time payment up to $100,000 per person to entice, or rather, induce the residents of Greenland to get onboard.. Currently, Denmark provides a $15,000 per year stipend to residents, making this a bad long-term deal, particularly when you consider U.S. health care and education costs, and the horrible living conditions in other U.S. territories.

In normal times, Trump would first ensure that congressional Republicans will pony up the dollars to pay whatever he offers Denmark or Greenland. However, he has already largely bypassed Congress’s powers of the purse, with the blessing of the Supreme Court. He will also mix in a healthy dose of threats of economic sanctions, particularly on Denmark’s pharmaceutical manufacturers that make popular weight loss drugs. At the same time, the U.S. will have either withdrawn from NATO, or at least made it clear that they have no intention of honoring their Article 5 obligations.

Trump’s goal will be to arrive at something like the Munich Agreement: lots of threats and bluster to get Denmark (and NATO) to cede Greenland, because they aren’t prepared to fight the U.S. over it and its 57,000 residents. Trump, who fashions himself a businessman, is already discussing showering Denmark and Greenland with outrageous sums of money. But he would rather see how much he can keep the price down through bullying, which has been his modus operandi since the beginning of his career. He enjoys humiliating people, and giving Denmark (and Greenland) pennies on the dollar would make his day, while reinforcing his own narcissistic self-image.

Assuming that he fails at this, he is unlikely to take “no” for an answer. This is where the new form of Russian-style hybrid warfare first tested in the American 2016 elections kicks in, plus a new twist: boots on the ground, quislings, and a Vichy government-in-waiting.

We will see the same sorts of algorithmically driven misinformation and propaganda on Trump allied (or controlled) social media, particularly X. There will be innumerable pieces about how bad things are for people there, and how much better they would be if the U.S. came in and developed the island. We’d see real people, actors, and deep fakes, and AI slop all claiming Greenlanders who want to become American, and allegations that they are being oppressed by their local government and Denmark in ways that appeal to whatever audience the messaging is targeting. At the same time, there will be an all-out propaganda campaign on American conservative media that the acquisition of Greenland is vital to U.S. national security.

U.S. oligarch money will absolutely flood into Greenland. If you Astroturf a movement, it will make the rest of the online propaganda seem plausible. We saw a preview of this with the Canadian trucker convoy of 2022, where about 44% of the money funding it was coming from the U.S. In a country of 57,000 people, it would be relatively cheap to build a fake movement and buy off key individuals. Consider that Elon Musk bought the U.S. government for the bargain basement price of $250 million.

It’s also possible we’ll see Americans in Greenland actively agitating and stirring up trouble, while producing fake interviews with people in Greenland, the way Don Jr., visited and tried to stir up sentiment in favor of becoming a territory of the U.S. (If you’ve ever visited American Samoa or Puerto Rico, you should have a good idea how the U.S. treats its territories and invests in their infrastructure.)

The goal is to “flood the zone with bullshit” to sufficiently confuse the issue for the world public, and particularly in Europe. If most people aren’t quite sure whether people in Greenland want the U.S. to “liberate” them, will they be willing to invoke NATO Article 5 against the U.S. over it? Trump’s calculus, much like Hitler’s in Austria in 1938, Czechoslovakia in 1938-39, and Poland in 1939, is that NATO will not go to fight over an island of 57,000 people in a war they cannot possibly hope to win.

My forecast is that the most likely outcome is that Trump will take over Greenland with the assent of Congress, a neutered Pentagon, and a Europe confused by waves of online disinformation fueled by fake pro-American movements. This bit of lebensraum will lead to what Trump hopes is Anschluss, while destroying NATO in the process. All of this is a matter of when, not if.

The outcome Trump would likely want the most is to secure exclusive rights to most of Greenland’s natural resources while leaving the island nominally in the hands of Denmark, similar to the “deal” he “negotiated” with Ukraine. If offering the natives glass beads for Manhattan doesn’t work, he will try to simply buy the people off. Failing that, we will see them move on to hybrid warfare.

CANADA

By the time we get here, Trump has taken Venezuelan oil, bombed Mexico, and found a way to annex Greenland. He has long set his sights on making Canada a part of the U.S. The Republican Party would prefer it to be a territory that has no say in the U.S. government. “The Canadians, they are going to elect two Democrat senators; we don’t want that. Territory status isn’t too bad,” said Representative Byron Donalds.

Canadian support for being a part of the U.S. runs around 20%, at best. In the most separatist part of the country (not Quebec, for a change), support for secession and independence only polls at about 31% in Alberta, while support for joining the U.S. polls at 24%. However, for that other 75% percent of Canadians, it has increased feelings of nationalism. Most Canadian leaders (outside of Alberta) are taking a “FU” attitude towards Trump’s threats of tariffs. Politicians there are engaged in competitive outbidding to see who can be the most hostile to Trump, his tariffs, and attempts to make Canada part of the U.S. Only Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has shown receptiveness to treating the Trump administration, and its punitive tariffs, with kid gloves.

If Trump successfully acquires Greenland via some combination of threats, coercion, or military force, he will turn to Canada. By that point, the U.S. would be done with NATO, Congress would be cowed, and the military brass tamed and staffed with yes men. Which would give Trump reason to believe he is coming from a position of military strength, and Canada and NATO couldn’t possibly hope to stop a U.S. invasion.

The tactics, techniques, and procedures used to muddy the waters with Greenland would be fully brought to bear on Canada. Every source of media available would be flooded with stories of how oppressed Canadians are full of socialists and socialized medicine, and in a system that tolerates transgender people, bans guns, and doesn’t prioritize Christians. Tales of horror and woe would be inescapable on both traditional and social media. Facts won’t matter. It only must seem plausible enough that people in the U.S., Canada, and EU countries do not know what to believe.

Any Canadian of any note who favors becoming part of the U.S. will be given a massive platform. People will be bought and movements Astroturfed to create the impression that there is a lot of ardent support for secession and annexation. We could also see some of Russia’s “little green men” hybrid warfare strategy of Americans, posing as Canadians, swelling the ranks of protesters against the Canadian government, stirring up trouble, and generally contributing to the impression that this is a mass movement with ardent, widespread support. American oil companies and oligarchs supporting Trump will pour money into separatist campaigns.

Polling data suggests conservative Canadians are more open to the idea, the goal will be to force a snap election and de-throning of the Liberal Carney government.

If the Trump administration fails to annex Canada voluntarily, they will use the Astroturfed movement that they created to act as a causus belli to “liberate” those poor, oppressed conservatives trapped in a socialist hellhole where there’s “transgender for everybody.” Very few people will know what to believe after the entire media ecosystem has been flooded with deliberate, targeted, carefully curated, choreographed, and algorithmically disseminated bullshit. Democracies do not stand a chance against this new form of hybrid warfare, especially now that AI can generate deepfakes and spread fake news faster than it can be debunked.

At this point, if Canada has failed to give in to demands and economic blackmail, they and NATO will be given an ultimatum presented as a fait accompli: You will let U.S. troops in, most likely to Alberta and Saskatchewan at a minimum. You cannot stop us by conventional means. The three options to NATO at this point are to allow us to annex Canada, fight a conventional war they cannot hope to win, or to use nuclear weapons against the United States and engage in mutually assured destruction. At the same time, the public in all the countries involved will have been subjected to a barrage of disinformation for months, and support for a futile (and bloody) conventional war or a nuclear exchange will be low.

This will likely be the thought process of the Trump administration if they have made it this far. The problem with this thinking is that, like most historical U.S. leaders, they’re not prepared to deal with an insurgency. And Canada is no exception.

Imagine a country with the population and GDP of California, with a land area larger than the United States, having no say in its own governance. Now imagine it has been invaded, and that getting military-style weapons from the country that invaded them is ridiculously easy. Imagine that the country doing the invading doesn’t have the troops or the resources to lock things down adequately.

On top of that, unlike Iraq, there is a clear and mostly coherent sense of nationalism in Canada (they’re still very proud of burning the White House down in the War of 1812, and being the reason why the world had to invent the concept of war crimes). There’s also the matter of people who would come from other countries, including the U.S., to participate in an insurgency in Canada.

Russia assured their people in 2022 that Ukrainians were just like them and wanted to rejoin the old Soviet Empire. It didn’t work out like that. If anything, Canadians are less enthusiastic about being a part of the U.S. than Ukrainians were about being part of Russia. It’s hard to see this turning out well for the U.S. in the long run. There’s a reason why the 20th century saw the end of non-contiguous empires.

AI “slopaganda” is increasingly appearing everywhere to convince Albertans that they would be so much more prosperous and happy if that mean ‘ole communist Carney government wasn’t ruining their industry. The slopaganda is borrowing from the US conservative playbook by telling Canadians that they need to secede, otherwise immigrants and transgenderism will destroy the culture they love. Or, as the people advocating joining the U.S. state at the end of the ads, “The choice is ours, independence or collapse.” On social media (particularly X), non-Canadian accounts appear to be driving the online push for Canada to be annexed to save the culture by joining with Trump, which reeks of foreign influence operations by the U.S., Russia, or both.

***

Trump might appear to be joking, but he doesn’t joke. He will take military action against cartels. He is dead serious about acquiring Greenland, and annexing Canada. His “jokes” are just thinly veiled desires. Militarily, he could accomplish all of these. Hanging on to them is another matter.

We will see a combination of what we saw in the last U.S. election on social media, with “wag the dog” guidance from the White House. If Denmark, Greenland, and Canada do not give in to demands to hand over their resources to the US and Trump’s wealthy allies, he will move on to a military campaign. This includes employing “little green men” hybrid warfare and Astroturfing to give the impression that pro-annexation sentiment in other countries is home-grown. Quislings will be elevated at every opportunity and paid to tell the public how much their countries really need the U.S. to come in and give them freedom.

Any hope that saner voices in the room will regain control is probably moot: The Republican Party and the Supreme Court seem utterly unwilling to rein in Trump at this point, no matter what idea he puts out there. I’m uncomfortably reminded of the Chinese Communist Party following Mao off a proverbial cliff as he got dotty, weird, and radical in his old age.

The world is on a precipice. Trump and his team know he’s not joking. What I have laid out above is, what I believe, their overarching strategy to achieve his goals of empire in the West, at the price of Ukraine and Taiwan. Most of the rest of the world is going to have to catch up in realizing that most of this is a matter of when, not if, and that the institutional guardrails of the U.S. have been effectively destroyed. World leaders must make the clear-eyed assessment that the U.S. is a clear and present danger to global democracy and order in the same way that Germany was, and Russia and China are today.