From "America First" to "Manifest Destiny": MAGA eyes foreign expansion
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MAGA is pressing the Trump administration to write a new chapter in America's expansionist history — one that adds territory and influence as part of a new Western empire.
Why it matters: On its face, MAGA's imperial turn is a head-spinning reversal for a movement built around hostility to "endless wars" in the Middle East.
- But reframed as hemispheric dominance, the right's expansionist impulse fits a civilizational worldview: America as the enforcer of the West, bending weaker nations to its will.
What they're saying: In the days after President Trump's stunning capture of Nicolás Maduro, even some of MAGA's loudest non-interventionists began casting strategic lands in America's hemisphere — including Colombia, Cuba and Greenland — as ripe for colonization.
- "How can you get more 'America First' than Manifest Destiny 2.0?" "War Room" host Steve Bannon told NBC News.
- "Expansion is the American way. It has been since literally the first moments of its existence," wrote The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh. "If Americans in the 1800s were as timid and weak as some of the naysayers today, we never would have even reached the Pacific.
- "[I]t's up to us to keep pushing for the orderly governance of the world via American imperialism," MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich said this week on Tucker Carlson's podcast.
Zoom out: At its core, MAGA thought leaders are animated by the belief that America is the heir to ancient European empires — and thus the central guarantor of Western power.
- Yes, the populist right remains deeply wary of foreign quagmires, especially in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. And if the U.S. becomes bogged down in Venezuela, attitudes could quickly shift.
But MAGA sees places like Greenland and Venezuela as categorically different from Iran or Ukraine for several key reasons:
- The Western Hemisphere is America's sphere of influence. Shows of force in the U.S. backyard should not be frowned upon, especially when rivals like China and Russia seek their own regional footholds.
- Natural resources are fair game. Oil, rare earths and strategic materials should be leveraged to advance U.S. power.
- Dominance deters weakness. The belief that America's global reputation has atrophied infuriates MAGA leaders.
- Lower escalation risk. Venezuela and Greenland don't border rival great powers, making domination less likely to spark unpredictable military blowback.
Between the lines: "Thinking of this as a binary between isolationism and imperialism or foreign adventurism is stupid," Turning Point USA's Andrew Kolvet told Axios. "We get ourselves trapped in these ideological cul-de-sacs of either or yes or no, all in or all out, when really, Trump has always been a pragmatist."
- "If we're going to assert ourselves militarily or economically, we've got to do it wisely," Kolvet argued. "And for goodness sake, if you're going to go, make it powerful, lethal and precise."
