Trump's march into a new age of imperialism

The attack on Venezuela and the seizure of its leader was a shocking enough start to 2026, but it was only the next day, when the smoke had dispersed and Donald Trump was flying home to Washington in triumph, that it became clear that the world had entered a new era.

- Julian Borger

Trump was leaning on a bulkhead on Air Force One, in a charcoal suit and glittering gold tie regaling reporters with inside details of the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, as they made the flight from his Florida retreat in Mara-Lago. The US president claimed his government was "in charge" of Venezuela and that US companies were poised to extract the country's oil wealth.

Clearly giddy with the success of the operation, achieved without a single US death but several Venezuelans and Cubans killed, Trump then went on to serve notice on a string of other nations that could face the same fate. "Cuba is ready to fall," he said. Colombia was run by a "sick man" who was "selling cocaine to the US" but who would not "be doing it for very long".

Trump said he would put off discussion for 20 days to two months, about his desired acquisition of Greenland, the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark (a Nato ally) but made clear he was determined to seize it for the sake of US "national security".

Lest there was any doubt about the scale of Trump's territorial ambitions, his administration posted its message to the world in capital letters, some of them in red, on social media.

"This is OUR hemisphere," the state department declared on X above a black and white picture of Trump looking grimly determined.

The White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, went on CNN to provide the rationale for Trump's new approach to foreign policy.

"We live in a world, in the real world ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time," Miller said.