Maga at work: In New America, Trump is emperor and the world is up for grabs

In his second inaugural speech, US President Donald Trump promised to usher in a “golden age”. In his first month in office, he has surely ushered in the age of empires.

From the President of the United States, Trump has transitioned into the Emperor of America as he is ruling by decree at home and reshaping borders abroad like the colonial powers of the 18th and 19th centuries.

If there were any doubts about how Trump saw himself, the White House quashed it with a post on Wednesday that showed Trump in a crown.

“Long live the King,” read the post.

The Founding Fathers of the United States set up the Congress and Judiciary as separate branches of the federal government equal to that of the Executive, but the separation of powers is now essentially dead. While the Republican-controlled Congress has been reduced to a rubber-stamp body , the Supreme Court is in Trump’s pocket — it has a 6:3 conservative majority and three of those six conservative judges are Trump’s appointees.

The result is that Trump has not just stretched the limits of Executive powers with maximalist interpretations of law, he has bulldozed longstanding legal precedents and even constitutional provisions.

Trump’s emperor-like rule is not just limited to domestic agenda. In a throwback to centuries gone by, he has sought to expand American territory by annexing Denmark’s Greenland island, Panama Canal, the nation of Canada, and Palestinian enclave of Gaza Strip. For Panama and Greenland, he has threatened their governments with invasions.

Trump’s expansionism is just the tip of the iceberg of his imperialist foreign policy. As a true emperor, he is carving up the world in spheres of influence with newfound US ally Vladimir Putin and is seeking to install satraps across the Western world.

Trump’s rule by decree, divine right to kingship

Consider these actions: birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution but Trump has sought to end it, the law says Congress needs to be notified when inspectors general are fired but Trump is firing them anyway, Congress has passed the budget but Trump has frozen spending, Musk has essentially taken over the federal government despite having no decision-making powers, and invasions and occupation of sovereign nations are normal.

As the legality of his actions started getting challenged, Trump’s allies started setting the stage for defying court orders that didn’t suit Trump’s agenda. They said that whatever Trump did was correct as he had been elected by the people — echoing the yesteryears’ notion that the king could do no wrong as he had the divine right to rule.

Vice President JD Vance said that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”, Musk suggested that Trump has a right to do whatever he wants to do as he has been elected, saying “if the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented and that means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy”, and Trump himself has stated he is above the law.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” said Trump in a post on X.

With friend in Moscow, Trump carves world in spheres of influence

In 1884-85, the United States, major European powers, and the Ottomon Empire gathered in Germany’s Berlin to decide the future of millions in Africa. On a map spanning 5 feet, they carved out Africa for themselves. The borders that they decided at the time —with no involvement of Africans— continue to divide the continent to this day.

With Russian leader Putin, Trump appears to be carving out similar spheres of influence today in the world.

Gone are the days when the United States sought to topple communist dictatorships abroad and promote democracy, garnering the US leader the title of the ‘Leader of the Free World’. In New America, Trump has brought back imperialism from the 19th century when the United States expanded westward, sought overseas presence in the Pacific Ocean, and carved out spheres of influence.

In a revised version of ‘Monroe Doctrine’ , Trump appears to have come to an arrangement with Putin where the United States would withdraw from Europe and focus on the Western hemisphere. That would explain why he has left Europe and Ukraine to their fate in the wake of unprecedented aggression from Russia.

Prof. Dominic Alessio, a scholar of imperialism and far-right at the Richmond American University at London, tells Firstpost that the private understanding between Putin and Trump is the most worrying element.

“I don’t understand why President Trump appears to have given everything to President Putin on a plate, including apparently much of Ukraine’s land as well as suggestions that Ukraine will not be a member of Nato. What is the quid pro quo here?” says Alessio.

What appears is that there is a private understanding between the two leaders, says Alessio.

“What keeps me awake at night now is the potential private understanding they have agreed to — that the United States in turn can take Greenland, Panama, and maybe even Canada, without Putin saying or doing anything critical. I pray this isn’t the case,” says Alessio.

To be sure, neither such an arrangement nor such a US approach would be without precedent. But history shows that such approaches led to disasters.

History is repeating itself — not a good sign

Just like Trump appears to be making a deal with Putin now, another pair of leaders made a Faustin bargain in the 1930s that sought to settle a clash of great powers but instead turned into the most shameful capitulation in modern history.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain entered into an agreement with German dictator Adolf Hitler to cede Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region to Nazi Germany in lieu of assurance that Hitler would not expand westward — he had previously annexed Austria.

Hitler of course had no intention to honour the agreement. After acquiring Sudetenland under the pact with Chamberlain, Germany seized the rest of Czechoslovakia within six months. Less than a year later, in August 1939, Germany invaded Poland and started World War II.

The parallels could not be more stark. Just like Hitler sought a deal to absorb Sudetenland on grounds that millions of ethnic Germans lived there, Putin has justified his stand on Ukraine —including the invasion— on the basis of securing the interests of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. Just like Sudetenland’s surrender was supposed to stop Germany’s march, the surrender of eastern Ukraine and the end of Ukraine’s bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) are supposed to placate Russia.

Just like Hitler went on to annex the rest of Czechoslovakia within months and invade Poland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has assured the world that Putin would not stop if Ukraine falls . He has said that “the risk that Russia will occupy Europe is 100 per cent”. As everyone is repeating history everywhere, Zelenskyy’s warning is not without merit.

However, it is not just in Europe that history is being repeated.

The US imperialist interventions in West Asia, for one, are not new. In 1953, the United States incited a coup in Iran to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh to restore the absolutist role of King Mohammad Reza Shah Shah Pahlavi.

While that secured US interests, it laid the groundwork for the country’s Islamists to foment a movement that culminated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 . Now, as Trump has announced the plan for the United States to acquire the Gaza Strip and displace Palestinians in what amounts to state-sponsored ethnic cleansing, another round of long-term crisis appears to be in the making.

Just like the United States overthrew Mosaddegh in 1953 in one of the many coups during the Cold War, Trump’s principal ally Elon Musk is now driving a regime change engine across the West . He has vowed to overthrow British PM Sir Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In Germany, he has formally endorsed the far-right party AfD.

With the Congress reduced to a rubber stamp body, the Supreme Court in their pocket, industrialists at their feet, and the international community too weak to stand up, there does not appear to be any challenge to Trump and Musk’s designs.

Prof. Alessio, the scholar of imperialism and far-right at the Richmond American University at London, says that while the current phase can just be another chapter in US history, as imperialism in the United States is not new, “it also portends a new period in that nation’s politics with a potential Palpatine pivot from republic to empire”.

Chamberlain or Churchill?

Even as history is repeating itself, there is one key difference.

When Hitler was marching through Europe, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill —who succeeded Hitler-appeaser Chamberlain— stood in his way. He wove the trans-Atlantic alliance with US President Franklin Roosevelt to defeat the Nazi Germany.

This time, the US leader —Trump— is not standing up to the aggressor but is cutting deals with him. Trump may have restored Churchill’s bust in the Oval Office of the White House, but he is more like Chamberlain cutting a deal with Putin — not Churchill.

In doing so, Trump has not only strengthened Russia’s hand but has revised history in which Ukraine, not Russia, started the war. In a head-spinning reversal of longstanding policy,  he has undermined Zelenskyy , whose stand against Putin has been otherwise equated with Churchill’s stand against Hitler, calling him a “dictator” and essentially calling for his ouster.

In the post-World War world order, a fundamental tenet had been that a nation cannot be allowed to take over another with the use of force — but no longer. Not only is Trump enabling such a takeover in Ukraine, he is himself seeking such takeovers, leaving no basis to counter the Chinese expansionist agenda in the Indo-Pacific and Asia.

The idea behind Trump’s withdrawal from Europe appears to be a reorientation where he withdraws the United States and turns the focus to the Indo-Pacific. Such an apparent approach has coincided with Trump cutting down engagement in multilateral organisations, such as the United Nations (UN), and in the developing nations.

Such an approach is misdirected and is likely to empower China, says Prof. Tej Pratap Singh, a scholar of China at the Department of Political Science, Banaras Hindu University.

Singh tells Firstpost, “Power does not remain in vacuum. If the United States leaves a theatre, such as Europe or Africa, China is going to enter that theatre. As President Trump withdraws from Europe by reducing commitment to European security and in Africa by cutting down humanitarian assistance by nearly shutting down USAID operations, China is set to make renewed outreach to these regions and replace the United States as the leading player.”