"After all, surely even the Trump administration would slow down; surely, not all their actions would be authoritarian. Turns out I needn't have worried. Take Venezuela, or, more accurately, take Venezuela's leader and spirit him away to a jail in Brooklyn and then take Venezuela's oil and sell it on the open market. Who will determine how the profit is divvied up? "Me," Trumps said, in a rare moment of honesty."
"While Hitler sought living space for his German Volk, Trump seeks to secure resource space: access to unlimited oil via Venezuela, access to rare earth minerals via Greenland, and access to pliant markets across Latin America and the Caribbean. All of this is backed by a pledge to vastly increase US military spending (last week he posted on social media that he needed a 50 percent increase in military spending over the next year)-thus putting the entire economy and country on a permanent war footing."
"Or take Greenland, or more accurately, well... "take Greenland." Because, as Trump so piquantly puts it, " Ownership is very important." He went on to tell his New York Times interviewers that "that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success." This is a 21st-century version of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes's hubristic claim, "I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.""
Trump proposed seizing Venezuela's leader and selling Venezuela's oil, personally claiming control of profits. Trump expressed a desire to "take Greenland" and insisted that "Ownership is very important," calling ownership psychologically necessary for success. The strategy targets access to unlimited oil, rare earth minerals, and pliant markets across Latin America and the Caribbean. The strategy is framed as resource-driven expansion akin to historical imperial ambitions. The plan includes a pledge to vastly increase U.S. military spending, which would place the economy and country on a permanent war footing. The approach is described as a grotesque philosophy given an anodyne name.
Read at The Nation
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