Donald Trump is not an outlier amongst American presidents
The proposed American annexation of Greenland and acquisition of other territories has historical precedent and should be taken seriously.
Editor’s note: this opinion piece began as a letter to the editor.
Many people are rightly condemning the Trump government’s blatant attempt to annex Greenland. Because it is a clear abrogation of international law and a refusal to respect the sovereign boundaries of existing nations, many nations are rightly fearful about their own future. Thankfully, many Americans protest President Trump’s threats against the sovereignty of other countries, often claiming that this is not the American way of conducting diplomacy. And it’s true that for much of the past 80 years, this has not been the American way.
But it was the American way for over 100 years, from 1812 to 1914, whenever it suited American presidents. When the United States won its independence from Britain in 1783, it was confined to the eastern seaboard of the continent, from Maine to Georgia. The country’s size more than doubled with President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Thereafter (with the exception of the purchase of Alaska in 1867), all of America’s territorial gains have been accomplished in ways that will sound familiar to readers today: bullying threats, military conquest and economic force. By these means, over one-third of America’s current sovereign territory was absorbed by the United States. And these are precisely the same means that President Trump is now using and threatening to use to obtain Greenland, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, Gaza and other places.
The only significant failure during America’s century-long period of expansionism was to not add Canada to the United States, a failure that Trump is threatening to correct. “To prove this,” as Thomas Jefferson said in the American Declaration of Independence, “let facts be submitted to a candid world.”
1812 threats
Last week, Trump reprimanded Mark Carney for being ungrateful in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos: “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
Leading up to 1812, President Thomas Jefferson famously said that the conquest of Canada “is a mere matter of marching,” and Kentucky Senator Henry Clay claimed, “I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky is alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.”
In 1812, President James Madison, supported by both the Senate and House of Representatives, declared war on Great Britain with the avowed goal of wresting possession of British North America for itself, to retaliate against British trade blockades, and because Congressmen in the western States believed Britain was helping First Nations peoples resist American expansionism.
Collecting states
In 1819, after Andrew Jackson’s “Indian fighters” had invaded Spanish Florida and waged war on the Indigenous Seminole populations, the United States forced Spain to cede Florida, parts of what are now the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Colorado, to the U.S. (Spanish Florida had been a destination for escaped slaves; some of whom fought alongside Seminole warriors against Jackson’s men.)
In 1845, the United States, by joint declaration of Congress, annexed Texas and granted it statehood at the request of Texan Americans who had led a revolt against Mexico nine years earlier in order to prevent Mexico from abolishing slavery throughout its sovereign territory. The territory so acquired included what is now Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado.
In the 1844 presidential election, James Polk, America’s 11th president, ran with the campaign slogan “54/40 or fight,” claiming for the United States all the land between Mexican California and Russian Alaska. Under threat of war, Britain yielded sovereignty over what later became Oregon, Washington and Idaho in 1846.
From 1846 to 1848, the United States went to war with Mexico to obtain California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
In 1898, the United States annexed the sovereign nation of Hawaii despite the existence of two treaties of peace, friendship and commerce between the US and Hawaii in 1826 and 1849. This was also despite President Cleveland’s 1893 address to Congress, which condemned the machinations of American interests to obtain the annexation of the island kingdom. Cleveland’s successor, President McKinley, signed the annexation of Hawaii in 1898.
Reaching still farther
Also in 1898, the United States waged war on Spain and, in its wake, took over the Philippines, Puerto Rico and several smaller possessions.
In 1903, the United States forcefully prevailed upon Britain to yield parts of British Columbia to the U.S. in what was then known as the Alaska Boundary Dispute.
Finally, in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt also recognized a revolutionary group in the Colombian province of Panama, thereby concluding an agreement that allowed the U.S. to build, own, and operate the Panama Canal. American gunboats ensured that Colombia could not send troops to suppress the rebellion, and the creation of a new vassal state of the United States in Central America became a de facto reality. The Panama Canal was completed in 1914.
New century, old policies
Obviously, for a full century, the United States showed little regard for what President Trump’s chief of staff recently called “the niceties” of existing treaties and international law when desired territory was at stake. What we are witnessing in 2026 is the resurgence of the old Manifest Destiny policies that justified so much American expansionism in times past. The U.S. is contributing to “a system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion,” in the words of Prime Minister Mark Carney in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. What is required at this time is implacable and united resistance from all nations at risk from this lawless manifestation of greed.
Further CC Reading:
- “What tables would Jesus flip today?” by Angela Reitsma Bick
- “ICE and the rule of law” by David Koyzis
- “Living maladjusted in the United States” by Jenai Auman
Thank you for reminding us of this history. It is a curious but discouraging fact that people / nations that consider themselves as God’s chosen seem historically to justify aggression.
P.S.: I remember you well from Trinity Christian College. With respect, Curt.
Always happy for another history lesson from Mr. Vanderkloet! Nice to see you here, sir.