WASHINGTON, DC

“THE UNITED STATES of America is built on conquest and acquisition. Every piece of territory it possesses was taken or bought from someone else. When it requires something, it either buys it or conquers it. When eleven of its own states wanted to leave and go their own way, it reconquered them. It even tried to take Canada in 1812. The march across the continent eventually developed into a quasi-religious political philosophy – Manifest Destiny. During the 20th Century, faced with distractions from around the world, Manifest Destiny was paused in favor of cultivating alliances, destroying old empires, defeating secular ideologies and fighting major overseas wars. In the 21st Century, it appears America now wants to retreat from the wider world and return to Manifest Destiny.”

Professor Monroe Jefferson of the College of Policy in New England, was speaking at a conference in Sydney, Australia.

“The Nazis were defeated eighty years ago; the other Fascists are all gone; the Communists gave up thirty years ago and all became Greens. America has a whole basket of new problems, many of them really serious. To expect it to continue policies that have no purpose forever, is naive. Perhaps it’s naive too to think that tariffs can insulate America from problems that are essentially internal. But remember, the key word in Make America Great Again is ‘Again’. Trump and his supporters fear they have lost something fundamental. Anyway, watch this space, as they say.”