I wanted to examine the real geopolitical impact of the Trump policy like kidnaping Maduro and taking Greenland.
All of this stem from the geopolitical competition with China. The reason that we have this competition in the first place is that the overall power of China has risen from insignificant outer fringe (think 1979) to parity with the U.S. Some would argue that China has already surpassed the U.S. in geopolitical power.
The reasons could be found both in China and in the U.S. Setting aside what the Chinese did right, the following are a few of the areas that I see the U.S. did wrong,
1. financialization of the economy means manufacturing is increasingly uncompetitive and drove out much of the manufacturing.
2. Allowing capital to dominate politics, which puts corporate interests ahead of national interests.
3. undisciplined native population that are increasingly unproductive due to the increasing wealth of the nation and a welfare system that did not hold recipients accountable.
4. Increasingly polarized politics that failed to compromise for the good of the country.
5. Politicians that will not do the right thing like balancing the budget.
So can any of these issues be addressed by Trump taking Greenland and kidnaping Maduro? For Latin America, the U.S. had a long history of meddling in their affairs back when we were a much stronger power. The end result is that we are still sending in troops in 2026. Many of these countries are corrupt and have very complicated political landscape. Unless we send in our troops to occupy the land, the vested interests of the ruling class will not budge much. Judging by the fact that Trump sent in Delta Forces in a grab and run operation, he had not intention of occupying the Venezuela. Add to the fact that no U.S. multinationals are willing to spend the money to go into Venezuela to get the oil, this operation has zero impact of geopolitical impact outside the election cycle.
For Greenland, many argued that there are minerals, key location etc. The fact is, it is a land covered by thick ice and likely remaining so for at least a decade, likely multiple decades. Given that in the most optimistic scenario, we are looking at someone can only start building ports and roads after a decade, there is no benefit to the U.S. for at least multiple decades.
Trump had squandered the goodwill of the U.S. for no real improvement of the U.S. strategic position, just to help himself with midterm election.
Despite all the slogans such as bringing back manufacturing to the U.S., I don't see any of the five structural issues I listed above being addressed by Trump in any meaningful way. In fact, it is getting worse under his watch(budget deficit, polarization, capital dominating politics). The Titanic is still headed to the iceberg. Trump, as all recent presidents before him, failed to address the key issues of our decline.