In all of American history, Donald Trump has only honored one of his predecessors in his inauguration speech: Republican William McKinley (1897-1901), assassinated during his second term. The new president wants to give back to Mount Denali, the highest peak in North America, in Alaska, the name McKinley, as was the case before Barack Obama renamed it to link it to local identity.
Forgotten by his compatriots, the former leader has everything to please Trump. In addition to his love for customs tariffs, he had led a spectacular expansionist policy: his war against Spain had allowed him at the time to integrate Cuba, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico into American territory. It had also swallowed Hawaii.
Denmark must “get used to the idea” of losing Greenland
More than one hundred and twenty-five years later, his distant successor is the first to also want to expand America. All the way to the planet Mars, where he intends to “plant” the national flag, to the delight of his close advisor Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, a major promoter of this project.
Resurrecting the vision of a world divided into spheres of influence inherited from the 19th century, the billionaire, who thinks he was saved by God – in reference to the bullet that almost killed him in Pennsylvania in July – to return his greatness to America, has once again declared that he wants to “take back” from Panama its transoceanic canal, ceded in December 1999. He also visibly persists in his intention to get his hands on Greenland, owned by Copenhagen for two centuries, in the name of “international security” – “I’m sure that Denmark will come to terms with the idea”, he slipped.
No one knows to what extent these announcements will be followed by effects. But the fact that they keep coming back obsessively doesn’t bode well. With this return to the past, the world has fallen into the unknown, on January 20, 2025. We must always be wary of a leader who believes he has God on his side.
China immediately jumped into the breach to try to improve its image, in contrast to Trump’s announcements. She said she was “concerned” by the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO). And denounced the “hegemonic, authoritarian and brutal face of the United States”, after the new tenant of the White House re-listed Cuba – which Beijing supports politically and economically – on the blacklist of countries supporting terrorism. After his positions, it is in any case difficult to see how Donald Trump could teach his counterpart Xi Jinping a lesson if he decides to invade Taiwan.