Back in 2016, when much of the political press was casting Donald Trump as a dovish counterpart to Hillary Clinton, I wrote a story arguing that people were fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Though Trump certainly wasn’t a neoconservative, I argued, he was a different and older kind of nationalist hawk — “an ardent militarist who has been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years.”

Trump’s actual policy while in office bore this prediction out. And as he prepares for a second term, Trump is elevating his aggressive impulses to new heights. In the weeks prior to inauguration, he and his team have suggested:

• Using “economic force” to pressure Canada into becoming the 51st state.
• Levying tariffs on Danish goods designed to force Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States.
• Using the US military to retake control of the Panama Canal and seize Greenland.
• Issuing an executive order that would permit sending American troops into Mexico to fight drug cartels.

These ideas vary in plausibility. There is no chance that Canada will become part of the United States, but it’s possible that Trump tries to bully Canada (or Denmark, or Panama) with economically destructive tariffs. And while a Trump war in Mexico may sound outlandish, he’s been talking about it seriously for years. Much of his party is already on board.

But the question I’m interested in now is less what’s going to happen, which is ultimately unknowable, than why Trump seems so fascinated by the idea of American expansion. What does it tell us about the once-and-future president, and the instincts he’ll be bringing to bear on the world when he returns to power on........

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