Subscriber Exclusive: Trump’s New Expansionism

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Can history explain the inconsistencies in Donald Trump’s foreign policy? The U.S. president campaigned on securing the country’s borders while talking up the possibility of invading Greenland, and he has promised to end U.S. interventionism while seeking to oust Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. According to the historian Greg Grandin, Trump may be seeking inspiration from the United States’ founders, who expanded the country’s frontiers.

But Trump’s arena is the world in 2025, not the early 19th century. How will it all add up, and what checks and balances might his White House encounter? Grandin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, joined FP Live to discuss Trump’s imperialist tendencies and how they change Washington’s relations with its partners and neighbors.

Highlights from Greg Grandin

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Why Trump Is a ‘Scarcity President’

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin on the end of the American myth of limitlessness.

Insider  |  Ravi Agrawal

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Trump’s New Expansionism

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