Trump resurrects 19th century ‘Manifest Destiny’ ideals as he eyes US territorial expansion

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - US President Donald Trump speaks at an event to sign the Laken Riley Act, legislation requiring the detention of immigrants living in the US illegally who are accused of theft, at the White House, in Washington, January 29, 2025. — Reuters pic

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 — “Manifest Destiny” is back, with Donald Trump as its champion.

In the 19th century, the phrase was used to invoke the divine justification for the United States to expand its territory westward all the way to the Pacific — in bloody campaigns that saw the conquering of Mexican and Native American lands.

Trump’s second term as president, not even two weeks old, is already mixing religious fervour, nationalism and territorial expansion.

The Republican has vowed to acquire Greenland — and declined to rule out the use of military force to do so. And he’s targeted the Panama Canal, insisting on taking back the key waterway from Panamanian control.

Canada, meanwhile, would be better off as America’s 51st state, according to Trump.

Though key to Trump’s aggressive foreign policy, threats of territorial expansion more akin to the 19th century have rattled Washington’s modern diplomatic relationships.

Manifest Destiny was “a belief on the part of some Americans, in a particular moment in American history, that God intended this country to expand from one coast to the other,” historian Alan Kraut, of American University, told AFP.

“That was sort of the American conception of itself: this was a country that had been somehow blessed by God with great resources... (and) vast amounts of land, and now it was being filled with people from various other parts of the world who were coming here in ever greater numbers.”

Tarnished president honoured

If Manifest Destiny entwined religion and nationalism, Trump himself hasn’t shied away from those themes either.

After two assassination attempts on the campaign trail, he said at his inauguration on January 20 that he was “saved by God to make America great again.”

His own Manifest Destiny also includes 21st century twists.

“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars,” Trump said during his inauguration speech.

US westward expansion in the 1800s was a particularly violent era in American history, with a war against Mexico and the dispossession of Native Americans.

One of the grimmer chapters was the so-called “Trail of Tears,” where thousands of Native Americans were forced out of the US southeast.

A portrait of president Andrew Jackson (1829-37), whose Indian Removal Act spurred what modern historians have in retrospect called the ethnic cleansing or genocide of the tribes, now hangs in the Oval Office at Trump’s request.

Manifest Destiny was also key in the acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and Hawaii under William McKinley, in office from 1897-1901.

The tallest peak in North America used to bear his name before president Barack Obama renamed the Alaskan mountain to Denali, the name used by Alaska Natives.

One of Trump’s first acts of office was to rename it Mount McKinley.

Outdated?

Reviving 19th-century style imperialist expansion won’t come without a fight, however.

Canada, Greenland and Panama have all pushed back on Trump’s rhetoric, which is itself a callback to a young American nation teeming with immigrants and a booming population — a far cry from the president’s isolationist vision today.

“Manifest Destiny of the old fashioned kind, of the 19th century kind, is gone, right?” said the historian Kraut.

“There are other countries in the world that are powerful, there’s an interdependence among countries, whether Mr Trump realises it or not.” — AFP