COMMENT | Why are politicians, the media and scholars expressing shock at US President Donald Trump’s outlandish outbursts in demanding that Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Gaza be “handed over” to the United States, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau worries that Trump wants to annex his country?

After all, Trump had been making these threats for years, as early as when he began his first presidential campaign in 2016, and with greater emphasis during the 2024 campaign. Neither is Trump the first US president who has harboured ambitions to expand the US empire.

The reality is that imperialism has been the fundamental pillar of US foreign policy and has been her permanent interest since the birth of the United States as a republic in the late 18th century.

They even predate her establishment as a nation. Soon after the...