Manifest Destiny Redux - Thomas Jefferson And Donald Trump's International Expansionism

Manifest destiny was the expansionist belief in 19th-century America that American settlers were destined to expand westward across the continent and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief is rooted in American exceptionalism, romantic nationalism, implying the inevitable spread of republicanism and the American Way.  According to historian William Earl Weeks, there were three basic tenets behind the concept:

• The assumption of the unique moral virtue of the United States.
• The assertion of its mission to redeem the world by the spread of republican government and more generally the "American way of life".
• The faith in the nation's divinely ordained destiny to succeed in this mission.

Thomas Jefferson played a crucial role in the early stages of Manifest Destiny through the Louisiana Purchase and his vision of westward expansion which laid the groundwork for the United States territorial expansion. 

Jefferson sponsored and promoted the famous Lewis and Clark expedition on a maiden voyage to map out, plat, and claim the vast lands recently bought from France in the Louisiana Purchase. The enterprise was central to the development of the new American lands, for it provided the framework for the titling and private ownership of land, on the basis of which new landowners could borrow money to improve it. 

The United States has never veered far from this founding principle.  Throughout its history it has claimed territorial rights over sovereign lands and used military force to secure it.  The Mexican wars were meant to push Spain back from its own territorial designs on the Southwest, the American War against Spanish Main Philippines was a conflict that arose after the Spanish-American War.  The United States which had defeated Spain in the war, sought to assume control of the Philippines, a colony which had been under Spanish rule for over 300 years. 

The American invasion of Cuba in the Bay of Pigs operation, the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, the compacts made with the Pinochet regime in Argentina and the colonels in Brazil were outright attempts to exert American hegemonic influence in the hemisphere. 

Under George W. Bush and the Neocons, American exceptionalism was the policy meme, and US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were expression of it. American-style democracy was, in Francis Fukuyama's words, the end of history, and spreading it among the newly liberated Soviet states and elsewhere was America's calling and duty. 

'I am Manifest Destiny', said Donald Trump in a speech before the American Foreign Policy Institute in February of this year (2026) and he made it quite clear that he was invoking the spirit of Jefferson in his bold nationalism.  

There is no way that the Americas, long continents in America's orbit, ambit and geopolitical interest can be allowed retreat into socialism, a political philosophy antithetical to American values and one on which corrupt governments have pillaged, raped, tortured, and deceived the people they were to serve.

America will not stand by idly and let Cuba continue to deprive its citizens of their natural rights, consign them to more years of destitution and poverty; nor did it remain on the sidelines while the venal, corrupt, and vile regime of the dictator Nicolas Maduro ran Venezuela into the ground. 

We will stand with Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador and other countries whose leaders are visionary men, determined to return the country to free elections, free markets and free enterprise. 

America will not stop in its own backyard, said the President.  China will not be allowed to range free to exploit African countries, control the mining of rare earths, oil, and gas.  Africa, while not in America's direct geographical orbit is within its geopolitical one. 

Progressives have cried foul.  The President is turning America into a neocolonialist power no different from those European empires which exploited black and brown people, ransacked Africa and Asia of its natural resources and turned them into subservient lackeys.  Donald Trump may say he is promoting the cause of freedom, but his only interest is dominant control. 

'I am indeed', replied the President in a speech to the Hoover Institute.  'I make no bones about my intentions.  Why should billions of people suffer under communism, socialism, and brutal dictatorships when America is there to help? 

'And yes', he went on, 'in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson and Manifest Destiny, I want American access to the world's resources without restriction.  Just as settlers from Ohio and Pennsylvania moved westward in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark and laid claim to the fertile lands of the prairies and beyond,  Americans have the right to the world's oil, minerals, and rare earths.  There are no limits or boundaries to international commerce.'

 

As part of this renewed doctrine of American geopolitical expansionism, the President has isolated what he has called 'the nexus of possibility' a triumvirate of geopolitical power, all in competition for power, territory, and resources but honest brokers in their Machiavellian intentions. 

Russia, China, and the United States - finally and at long last - have understood the nature of political adversity, and in so doing have made the battle lines unequivocally clear.  Of course Russia and China will try to expand their spheres of geopolitical influence and now so will the United States.  All will be above board, a clear, defiant contest of wills. 

There will be no negotiations, no Neville Chamberlain 'Peace in Our Time' capitulations, no Biden era Utopian, One World idealism.  Each of the three powers of the triumvirate will be acting on willful purpose to extend and expand its power and influence and in so doing control the world's resources. 

American progressives, steeped in this Chamberlain-esque compromise and craven idealism, march in protest - the Hamas, Venezuela, and Iran wars are nothing but bald neo-colonial adventurism and display Donald Trump's arrogance, dismissiveness, and autocracy.  America's F-16s over Tehran, Gaza, and Caracas are there only to bully, intimidate, and destroy. 

The President did not answer these charges, too pitifully naive and self-serving to deserve a reply, but said in a speech to the DAR in Washington:

We are patriots all, defenders of freedom, liberators, and pioneers of Manifest Destiny.  The world has changed, reverted to history's old ways of survival, conquest and spoils.  I invoke Genghis Khan when I convene my Cabinet to discuss our foreign policy, a man of iron will, unshakeable purpose, and vast geopolitical vision.  Thanks to him and his Mongol-Turkic armies, the Mongol Empire spread from Europe to the Far East. 

Again the Left raised its voice in protest.  'We are on the cusp of a new, verdant, harmonious, peaceful world order', said Bob Muzelle, a leader in the peace movement since the days of the Cold War, 'on the verge of diversity, inclusivity, and equity on an international scale, and we shall not be denied.'

His voice trailed off in the March wind, down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House, and in ever more faint echoes down the National Mall.  It was a feeble, desperate plea to return to an age of idealism which never existed.  The United States has always been a nation of Wild West justice, Robber Baron enterprise, and Harry S Truman brass balls, and the new Manifest Destiny is right in line.