Within the few weeks since United States President Donald Trump returned to the White Space, international leaders and commentators have struggled to make sense of his option to overseas coverage, together with price lists, alliance renegotiations and threats of territorial appropriation.
No person is certain how a lot is bluff or negotiating ways, nor how a lot is fatal critical.
For some, Trump’s overseas coverage is just incoherent, however maximum attempt to are compatible his means into the acquainted selection between isolationism and internationalism.
However there’s a 3rd risk: Trump’s 2d presidency marks a modern twist on an older type of continentalist geopolitics with necessary implications for Canada and the arena.
‘Great Powers’
Even if it’s been in large part lacking from overseas coverage debates within the post-2nd Global Battle technology, continentalist geopolitics has an extended and ceaselessly debatable historical past.
Within the nineteenth century and the primary part of the twentieth, it envisioned an international divided into “great spaces,” every ruled by way of a unique “Great Power.” Consistent with this viewpoint, now not all areas are similarly necessary, and continentalist geopolitics does now not require a decision between internationalism and isolationism.
As a substitute, continentalism recommends that Nice Powers just like the U.S. — with its large monetary, herbal and commercial assets — be aware of controlling territory, the areas surrounding it and the an important transportation routes on its continental fringes.
Force is put on international locations whose significance is decided by way of their geopolitical proximity, and people who are least ready to withstand because of their dense connections and relative dependence at the U.S.
The target isn’t just to realize explicit benefits; it’s to power neighbours into even tighter financial and infrastructural connections and dependence. The most obvious international locations on this state of affairs are Canada and Mexico, and it’s due to this fact unsurprising that each had been the objectives of Trump’s vital tariff threats and different coercive measures.
When Ontario Premier Doug Ford talks concerning the want for tighter continental ties thru a continental AmCan association, he supplies precisely the required response.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford holds a information convention on American price lists on March 4, 2025.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Pressuring neighbours
Past geographically contiguous states, continentalist geopolitics additionally specializes in spaces that command key strategic passages and business routes, particularly the ones lately managed by way of weaker powers.
For the U.S., Panama, with its canal, suits the invoice. Danish-administered Greenland, with its herbal assets and geographic significance in a hastily thawing Arctic area, is every other. It’s unsurprising that those international locations, at the side of Canada, have been a Trump center of attention within the first weeks of his 2d management.
As of late, continentalist geopolitics acknowledges the multi-polarity and “multi-alignment” in international politics.
It’s now not isolationist, but it surely acknowledges that waning American energy in an inter-connected international offers extra far away states the power to withstand U.S. force by way of making offers with quite a lot of different international locations. On this environment, an interventionist world position is neither imaginable nor fascinating, and the U.S. must chorus from world commitments.
As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in one among his first interviews after taking place of work:
“It’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power… that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multi-polar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, proper, listens as President Donald Trump meets with the French president within the Oval Workplace in February 2025.
(Ludovic Marin/Pool by way of AP)
No dedication to world balance
The continentalist viewpoint does now not require an entire separation from the arena financial or safety order. Business, monetary and era flows will also be inspired, however their foundation can be a re-industrialized and extra self-sufficient core, well-insulated from financial and safety threats.
Prolonged pursuits, corresponding to Ecu balance, might be minimized by way of expanding the price burden to allies and minimizing mounted commitments. A formidable world capability with a “light” geographic footprint is the most well liked posture.
Requires higher defence spending by way of NATO allies and for Ecu accountability in implementing a post-war agreement in Ukraine logically practice.
The continentalist playbook is content material to go away the control of far away areas to different powers, every pre-eminent of their a part of the arena. That suggests participation in world organizations is minimized.
International help must replicate American pursuits, with involvement relying at the prices and advantages, now not any computerized dedication to world balance. Feeding the arena’s maximum intensive construction company, USAID, “into the wood-chipper” — to cite Elon Musk — is a web page taken instantly from this sort of geopolitician’s guide.
Elon Musk salutes as U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint consultation of Congress on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2025.
(AP Photograph/Alex Brandon)
Unsavoury historical past
The likelihood {that a} continentalist geopolitics underpins contemporary U.S. overseas coverage projects has won too little consideration in Canada.
It’s now not but transparent that the movements of The united states’s new management constitute the upward thrust, a lot much less the triumph, of Trumpian geopolitics. Neither is there any make it possible for this kind of imaginative and prescient would or will be triumphant.
However there’s sufficient proof to signify we must take the likelihood severely. Since 1945, The united states’s overseas coverage choices have resided someplace between internationalism and isolationism. However a geopolitical imaginative and prescient of worldwide politics as a various canvas of huge territory ruled by way of other Nice Powers have an extended, if ceaselessly unsavoury, historical past in overseas coverage.
A southern neighbour pursuing a this kind of geopolitical means would mark an intensive transformation in international order and pose massive demanding situations for Canada. Canadians must a minimum of be ready for the likelihood.
