Under Trump, U.S. Hegemony Is Entering Full Predatory Mode
Sunday witnessed high drama, with major implications for U.S.-Latin American relations, the people directly involved and all who rely on their morning cup of joe to make it through the day. It all began when Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to allow two U.S. military planes carrying Colombian citizens deported from the U.S. as part of President Donald Trump’s massive anti-immigration scheme to land in the country. Petro objected to the use of military planes for the deportation, in place of the chartered commercial planes usually used, as well as to the fact that the deportees were reportedly handcuffed and shackled during the flight.
Trump responded by threatening a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Colombia imported to the U.S., as well as financial sanctions on the country and other punitive measures on Colombian government officials. In the face of such overwhelming economic force, Petro and Colombia backed down, allowing the deportation to take place, but on planes sent to the U.S. by the Colombian air force. One commentator described Trump’s handling of the incident as “cooperate or else.”
The episode with Colombia was far from an isolated one, however. It was also reported this week that Trump had a “fiery” exchange with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen over the acquisition by the U.S. of the island of Greenland, a move Trump first raised back in 2019 but on which he has seemingly become fixated since winning the U.S. presidential election in November. Once again, Trump threatened sanctions if the U.S. doesn’t get its way. When combined with Trump pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, signing an executive order freezing all foreign aid and appointing a secretary of defense who calls for restoring a “warrior ethos” to the U.S. military, it’s no wonder that many see Trump taking U.S. foreign policy in a darker, more coercive direction.
Trump has long been seen as transactional and a dealmaker. While such behavior was evident during his first term, it seems heightened this time around. The demands are now more coercive, almost predatory.
International relations scholars often make a distinction between benevolent versus malevolent, or cooperative versus coercive hegemons. Benevolent hegemons provide public goods willingly. Malevolent or predatory hegemons are at best merely transactional, at worst entirely self-serving and oppressive. If the United States is still the most important country in the international system—that is, if it is still the hegemon—then can the current international order survive having a predatory hegemon at its center?
The truth is that no powerful state, hegemonic states included, is purely located at one extreme of the spectrum, whether completely benevolent or predatory. Every major power, just like any state in the international system, is more self-serving than selfless. U.S. history is full of examples of Washington being more coercive than cooperative, even in the time since it began supporting the so-called liberal international order and even toward its staunchest allies in that order. To put it bluntly, the U.S. has always been a bit of a jerk. As international relations scholar and South Asia specialist Paul Staniland wrote during Trump’s first term, those who fear a decline of the liberal international order and worry about a more coercive direction of foreign policy under Trump “often present a narrow and highly selective reading of history that ignores much of the coercion, violence, and instability that accompanied post-war history.”
The U.S. under Trump appears bent on fully leveraging its outsized position within the world’s trade, security and financial networks to coerce better deals. If others don’t like it, they won’t even be given the dignity of a kind word.
But in the apocryphal words of Winston Churchill, for all its flaws, the U.S. could always be counted on to do the right thing—after exhausting all other options. The worry is that even this small comfort is no longer in play. The U.S. under Trump appears bent on fully leveraging its outsized position within the world’s trade, security and financial networks to coerce better deals. If others don’t like it, they won’t even be given the dignity of a kind word. The U.S., in Trump’s view, has been played for a sucker, and he’s determined to change all that.
But if Trump takes the U.S. into full predatory mode, abandoning even the façade of paying lip service to the liberal international order, should the world worry?
After all, despite Trump’s coercive behavior during his first term, the U.S. alliance structure remained largely intact. That was in part because Trump saw some value in maintaining ties with some U.S. allies, but also because those allies actively catered to Trump and his whims.
If this continues into Trump’s second term, it will not be because the U.S. under Trump continues to protect the vulnerable, whether at home or abroad. Instead, it will be because Trump’s transactional instinct is married with a desire to return the U.S. to a time where it was largely left alone. The U.S. under Trump will be a predatory hegemon that lacks hegemonic ambitions. It will be a coercive power that is inclined to renegotiate the terms of a deal rather than wield military force to get its way. Outside the parameters of those negotiations, however, there won’t be much reason to fear the United States. But there won’t be much reason to respect it either.
There is another factor that could possibly drive the U.S. under Trump toward taking on a constructive role in order maintenance, even peace-building: Trump’s personal desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which would make him only the sixth U.S. president or vice president to be awarded the prize. While it is unlikely that the committee thinks of him as a leading contender, Trump might do all he can to leave them no choice, whether it is brokering a settlement between Ukraine and Russia, extending the Abraham Accords so that Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize relations or finally reaching a long-sought-after nuclear deal with North Korea. Indeed, this desire may well explain the tone, tenor and content of Trump’s address to those gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, in which he called for cooperation in bringing about the end to conflicts, especially the war between Ukraine and Russia.
Some might question whether the U.S. is still the world’s hegemonic power, or the key country that can shape and alter the course of international politics. If it’s not, then Trump’s behavior, while concerning, can be dismissed as the flailing of a declining power. But even if the U.S. is not still hegemonic, much of the world—be it nations of the Western Hemisphere residing directly in the U.S. orbit, the network of allies that rely on U.S. protection or the international institutions that rely on U.S. support to function—still view the U.S. as the central actor in the world. Moreover, the U.S. remains, as I wrote in a previous column, “one of the few countries in the world with the power and resources to largely shape world politics in a manner that serves its interests. It would seem to be a wasted opportunity not to.”
But the question is not only whether the U.S. has the willingness and confidence to exercise that power, but how a state as powerful as the U.S. should do so.
It is well-known that Trump disdains the idea of a “rules-based” or “liberal international” order. He doesn’t see value in maintaining rules, institutions or customs for their own sake or even for the sake of habit and predictability. Indeed, he thrives in being unpredictable. He also thrives in being highly transactional. This will tilt the U.S. toward being more a predatory hegemon in the coming years, one that destabilizes and disturbs more than it comforts. But it also won’t be fully outside the bounds of how the U.S. was long perceived by others.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.