America First Isn’t Isolationism—It’s a License for Empire

People keep saying Trump is “betraying” America First. I think he’s finally saying the quiet part out loud: America First doesn’t mean restraint — it means America's interests come first... including power and (increasingly) resource grabs.

There’s a version of America First that many people want to believe in though. The clean version. The “let’s focus on problems at home” version. The “no more wars, no more regime change” version that works with what America has and focuses on its people's lives.

But that’s not what the slogan actually promises.

America First is not a commitment to non-intervention. It’s a commitment to U.S. interests first - as the priority - and however the government defines those interests, and whatever methods it uses to secure them is up to those currently in power.

That difference matters, because it explains what we’re watching right now: not a betrayal of America First, but a harder, more explicit, and less ethical version of it.

The Key Misread: “America First” ≠ Isolationism

People talk about America First like it’s the opposite of empire: stop meddling abroad, stop forcing our worldview on other societies, stop policing the planet.

But the phrase doesn’t say any of that.

It says: America first. Not “America only.” Not “America stays home.” Not “America minds its business.”

It’s about priority — and in practice, that can easily become dominance, doing whatever is necessary to secure what U.S. leaders claim America “needs.” Security. Minerals. Oil. Strategic geography. A compliant hemisphere. A favorable global order.

If you listen to Trump’s rhetoric, this is exactly how he frames it: America has needs; America has interests; and America - like a bully taking someone's lunch money - will take whatever it requires to feel powerful.

That is not a deviation from America First. That is America First as an imperial doctrine.

The Trump Nuance: Power, Authoritarian Envy, and “The Biggest Stick”

Here’s the nuance Trump brings — not as an abstract ideology, but as temperament and instinct.

Trump has always had a soft spot for authoritarian tactics. He doesn’t seem to respect law so much as power. He watches leaders like Putin, the Saudi leadership, North Korea, China, Viktor Orbán, and a whole range of right-wing strongmen and he doesn’t recoil — he seems to admire the simplicity: the ability to just do what you want, to treat politics as force by dominance, to make the biggest stick into the ultimate moral argument.

So on the campaign trail, America First can sound like restraint — “we’re not going to waste money abroad; we’ll focus on ourselves.”

But Trump’s America First with full institutional control — a compliant Supreme Court, control over Congress, control over the executive — is something else. It’s not “we’re stepping back.” It’s “we finally have the clearance to step forward harder, bigger, bader.”

And that’s where the older American imperial scripts start to reappear without embarrassment: Manifest Destiny, Monroe Doctrine, and now what he calls the 'Donroe' doctrine the idea that borders, norms, and even law are negotiable when the U.S. decides something is in its strategic interest.

In that frame, “America First” becomes a survival-of-the-fittest worldview: I’m going to take what I think is mine, because I can.

Greenland: When “National Security” Becomes Territorial Hunger

Greenland gets talked about like it’s a joke — a weird Trump obsession, a headline generator. But it’s not funny when leaders frame land acquisition as a “security necessity” and treat sovereign territory like an asset on a balance sheet.

Call it strategic positioning. Call it Arctic defense. Call it mineral access. The logic is the same:

We want it, we need it, therefore we should have it.

That’s not a foreign policy of restraint. That’s a foreign policy of entitled domination.

For context and reporting: AP on the White House saying military action is “always an option” in Greenland, and ABC on why Greenland is strategically important.

Ukraine’s Minerals: Transactional Empire in a Suit and Tie

The U.S.–Ukraine minerals deal is often defended as “just economics,” or “reconstruction,” or “investment.” But the way it’s been publicly framed matters: as access to resources, and as a form of payback, and as a strategic guarantee for the U.S. (not just a solidarity guarantee for Ukraine).

Even if you think the deal is defensible, the underlying message is clear:

Support is conditional. Security has a price. Resources are the collateral.

That’s not “we’re staying out of other people’s affairs.” That’s not, this is the moral thing to do. Instead, it's “we’re involved — and we’re getting something concrete out of it.”

Background and structure: U.S. Treasury on the U.S.–Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund and CSIS on what the signed minerals deal does.

Venezuela: When the Resource Grab Stops Pretending

And then there’s Venezuela — the country with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.

Whatever label people want to use — “strike,” “operation,” “intervention,” “regime change” — a U.S. military attack on Venezuela resulted in Maduro being captured and removed, and intense debate about legality, escalation, and U.S. motives.

And here’s the core point for me:

When the justification is openly tied to oil, “stability,” and U.S. control over outcomes - even the country itself - we are no longer watching soft-power influence or backroom leverage. We are watching something closer to the old force + resources + power model.

If you want to call that neocolonialism, fine. But the more direct and coercive it becomes, the more it looks like taking the material wealth of another country through direct power, and which isn’t even neocolonialism anymore. It’s OG, the original colonialism — resource extraction logic, backed by force, dressed up as national interest.

Reporting and fallout: AP live updates on the U.S. operation and casualties, Reuters on UN Human Rights Office criticism, and PBS on what we know so far.

“Do You Think Britain Colonized the World Out of Altruism?”

This is the part people don’t want to say plainly. 

Empires always have stories about themselves. They always claim moral purpose:

• We’re civilizing 'them'.
• We’re stabilizing 'them'.
• We’re bringing order.
• We’re protecting the world (and ourselves).
• We’re defending freedom...

Britain had its story. The U.S. has its story. But underneath the moral varnish, the throughline is usually the same:

resource access, strategic dominance, and the megalomania of being “the” global power.

So when people say Trump is “betraying” America First, I think they’re clinging to a comforting fantasy version of it — the fictious version that means humility, restraint, rebuilding at home.

But Trump’s version is brutally coherent:

American domination first — economically, militarily, culturally — because domination is framed as survival.

So What? Stop Laundering the Slogan

Here’s what I think needs to happen if we want to be intellectually honest (and politically serious):

1. Stop confusing “America First” with anti-war politics. They are not the same thing.
2. Name what this is: an imperial doctrine of entitled domination framed as “national interest.”
3. Reject the (fake)moral cover stories. If oil, minerals, and dominance are central motivations, say that out loud.
4. Push the debate onto law and legitimacy: sovereignty, international law, war powers, and the precedent this sets for every other major power watching.
5. Build a real alternative: a foreign policy rooted in restraint, reparative justice, and cooperation — not “dominance with better branding.”

Because if America First can mean “we take what we want because we say we need it and don't care about anyone else,” then it’s not a philosophy of national renewal.

It’s a permission slip for empire.

Avatar (based on a true story...)

So the only issue I had with the movie Avatar was that that's not really how the story ends.  I mean, here we are, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, not the Federation of Native Americans.  It would be lovely to think that the native american tribes would have been able to fend us off and be able to defend their homeland like in the movie, but then again, I guess that's why its a movie - it's a fairy tale.  I just wish that the people making decisions, which in a democracy should theoretically be US, the people, would learn from these types of films.  But more realistically, as democracy in this country leads a lot to be desired, it is the people in positions of power (governmental and corporate) that need to learn a leason from this movie. 

The cultures of the world are all beautiful in their own way, and everyone that grows out of each one has the right to keep and enjoy that culture without social, cultural, economic, or militarily being pushed in a different direction.  So how abotu if the West stops pushing the world around.  Think of how sad you felt as the human 'skypeople' killed and destroyed the Na'vi and their homeland, now picture that happening in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, South America, Asia, wherever we decide is a place of interest for us and our companies.  This is the story of Western history.  European expansion, colonization, globalization - whatever you want to call it - 'The West' (both its countries and its commercial interests) has been playing Avatar for centuries, while the rest of the world has been playing the Na'vi.  To bad the Na'vi's first real victory was on the big screen only within the last couple months rather than in real life.  How many have died?  How many have suffered?  When will we learn?    

Development

Development as a concept is interesting. The general implication in its usage today is usually either in terms of something happening – 'a development' – or in a more positive sense of something growing, expanding, or 'becoming better'. The usage of the word as generally seen in economic, social, and political terms in regards to the 'developing' world is generally the later: that they are 'developing', i.e. growing, expanding, or 'getting better'. This concept rests on some pretty large assumptions, and not much more profound than: that the area to be developed is in 'need' of, or desires to become, something else – something deemed 'bigger', 'better', or the like.

This is in fact tricky though, as in order to be something 'else', whether more developed or not, the 'thing' must first be either envisioned or influenced by another entity and then evolve to another stage or position. As 'the status quo' is followed, there is generally little but standard, small scale intermittent change that slowly and sporadically builds upon itself. However, upon a distinct external actor with different information influencing the original object, change then becomes a visible option and thus can be envisioned as an end game. The general developmental evolution of small scale change is generally on a step by step basis that is slowly evolving and envisioned by local actors throughout each step. In the situation where a new external actor enters the fray, there is no longer a simple step by step scenario, but rather an vision of an end result further ahead, but no real distinct path from A to B.

In the sense of colonial development, entity A is a local African social institution, object B becomes the life style and material goods of the European. The African's can not easily see what it took to make B, they can not see the step by step directions as they happened, they can only speculate through their own eyes as to what happened or to take the word or direction from the Europeans that introduced the concept of 'B' to their own preexisting world. Both of these situations have substantial shortcomings. In using their own indigenous speculation ideas like Cargo Cults come to the fore. Local populations then end up trying to 'reinvent the wheel.' However, it is not a simple reinvention, as they are doing it without the stone or wood used prior. In listening to the European path of development, they are subject to the selective memory of the Europeans' developmental existence and subconscious interpretation of the current self-interest of both man and country. The history of 'development' in Africa is a direct by-product of this 'missing link' developmental pathway.

It has still been asserted though in some academic circles that a period of colonial rule is a 'necessary precondition' for the emergence of modern and technologically advancing states from precolonial Africa and Asia.1 This line of thought was pronounced as justification for the implementation of a well thought out and adhered to practice that started as colonialism and then transformed into what we now call 'development'. The problem with this line of practice is that it is technically flawed, not only along the lines directly discussed above, but it also fundamentally begs the question as to where did the European colonizers come from? If they managed to develop without the need of an overlord's expertise, what makes their developmental pathway so culturally different from those on other continents? If they developed naturally, why couldn't other areas? This brings us directly back to the concept on another external entity forcing change, and skewing the pathway to the final outcome. Agneta Pallinder-Law brings attention to several cases where it has been argued that the adoption of some elements of western technology were present before colonization – independent of European rule – and that ‘modernization was in many cases frustrated rather than accelerated by the European conquest.' (Pallinder-Law, P. 65).

If this line of thought is in fact the case, is the generic model of 'modernizing' that the West has been applying – first as colonialism and in current day as development – in the 'less developed' areas of the world more an imperialist agenda than anything else? A fictitious road map to 'modernity' that administrators may not even realize is fallacy? Even the best of intentions – if that is in fact what they are – can go wrong. In fact, the system that has created the West, and the system that the West now lives in and seems to believe is the harbinger of 'development' and 'success' in life, has produced a people and system that is based on self-interest – whether personal, regional, national or otherwise. This system, as it consumes its own resources, sees the 'development' of other areas of the world as paramount to its own self-interests and success. The fact that the West has things that to the touch (in the productive aspects of life) and in a military sense seem more useful and powerful than another cultures 'stuff', produces a self-arrogance and belief in ones own system that 'justifies' the expansion of this system over others in the eyes of the originator and expander. They see themselves as 'civilizing' the others, but in fact they are merely changing them into something more similar and comforting, something more like there own 'civilization'.

It is in fact this self-interested motivation that creates a system that is based upon competition rather cooperation. Competition can not exist without a hierarchical structure based on status and power that does not seem to be able to willfully be changed from the top down. The developed countries will not wholly welcome the equality of the ‘lower’ raising to the level of the ‘higher’. Some countries – mostly democracies lead by a small swell of ‘concerned voters’ that bring the plight of the less advantaged to light – will attempt to put forth development programs that speak of helping the less developed world. But in reality, whether a few individuals want to or not, the country's policies don't end up really looking to raise these countries to the highest levels given political and democratic compromise. Whether they say they do or not, intrinsically – conscious or not – they are motivated by self-interest. The countries end up more importantly looking to accumulate the means of production in ownership terms and then to create a group of countries with a strong set of middle managers that can help with the extraction and route to market of the rich amount of resources in said countries. It is not about equality, it is about accumulation by dispossession, whether they consciously believe it or not.

Some of the ramifications of this line of thought are succinctly discussed by Arturo Escobar in Encountering Development as he expands upon the competitive aspects of the system in stating that “The system that generates conflict and instability and the system that generates underdevelopment are intricately bound.” (Escobar, P. 34) Escobar believes that “massive poverty in the modern sense appeared only when the spread of the market economy broke down community ties and deprived millions of people from access to land, water, and other resources. With the consolidation of capitalism, systemic pauperization became inevitable.” (Escobar, P. 22)

Capitalism does not allow anything else on a motivational and systemic level. There are of course always outliers that will try to generally do alternative things (i.e. best intentioned developmental concepts), but on the whole, the system rewards and thus produces self-interested actors (individual, state, or otherwise) that will put their own situations ahead of others even if it appears otherwise as they do what looks to be good-natured developmental work. Profit maximization – ‘I’ll save lives if I can profit from it’.