When Donald J. Trump won a return to the White House, many countries thought they knew what to expect and how to prepare for what was coming.
Diplomats in world capitals said they would zero in on what his government does, not what Mr. Trump. Major nations have developed plans to mitigate or counter his threat of punitive tariffs. Smaller countries hoped they could just hide from another four years of America First storm forces.
But it’s getting harder and harder for people to keep calm and carry on.
At Tuesday’s press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump refused to rule out the use of force in a possible land grab for Greenland and the Panama Canal. He vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” He also said he could use “economic power” to make Canada the 51st state as a matter of American national security.
For those who want to sort the substance from the joke, it looked like another show of scattered bravado: Trump II, the sequel, more unrestrained. Even before assuming his duties, Mr. Trump, with his astonishing wish list, has sparked “here we go again” comments from around the world.
Beyond the chatter, however, there are serious stakes. As the world prepares for Trump’s return, the parallels between his preoccupations and the distant era of American imperialism in the late 19th century become more relevant.
Mr. Trump has already defended the era for its protectionism, arguing that the United States in the 1890s “was probably the richest it’s ever been because it was a tariff system.” Now, it seems to add focus from the 19th and early 20th centuries for territorial control.
What both eras share is the fear of shaky geopolitics and the threat of being cut off from territories of great economic and military importance. As Daniel Immerwahr, an American historian at Northwestern University, put it: “We’re seeing a reversal to a more predatory world.”
For Mr. Trump, China is ready, in his view, to take territory away from its borders. It has falsely accused Beijing of controlling the US-built Panama Canal. There is also the specter, more grounded in reality, of China and its ally Russia moving to secure control of Arctic sea lanes and precious minerals.
At the same time, competition is growing everywhere, as some nations (India, Saudi Arabia) rise and others (Venezuela, Syria) struggle, creating openings for outside influence.
In the 1880s and 1890s, there was also a struggle for control and no sovereign nation. As countries became more powerful, they were expected to grow naturally, and rivalries redrawn maps and caused conflict from Asia to the Caribbean.
The United States mirrored Europe’s colonial designs when it annexed Guam and Puerto Rico in 1898. But in larger countries, such as the Philippines, the US ultimately opted for indirect control by negotiating agreements to promote preferential treatment for American businesses and the military interests.
Some believe that Mr. Trump on Greenland, the Panama Canal and even Canada is a one-man revival of the expansionist debate.
“This is part of a pattern of US control or effort in areas of the globe that are considered American interests, without having to invoke the scary words ’empire,’ ‘colonies,’ or ‘imperialism,’ while still reaping material benefits,” he said. Ian Tyrrell, a historian of American empire at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
The threats of Mr. Trump’s territorial grab may just be a bargaining chip or some sort of personal desire. The United States already has an agreement with Denmark that allows the operation of a base in Greenland.
His proposal for Americanization there and elsewhere amounts to what many foreign diplomats and scholars see as an escalation rather than a break with the past. For years, the United States has tried to contain Chinese ambitions with a familiar playbook.
The Philippines is back in the spotlight, with new deals for bases that the US military can use in any potential war with Beijing. So are the sea lanes that matter more for trade both in Asia and around the Arctic, as climate change melts ice and makes navigation easier.
“What the US has always wanted was access to markets, lines of communication and the ability for future projections of material power,” Professor Tyrrell said.
But especially for some regions, the past as prologue inspires dread.
Panama and its neighbors tend to view Mr. Trump as a mix of the 1890s and the 1980s, when the Cold War led Washington to meddle in many Latin American countries under the guise of fighting communism. The Monroe Doctrine, another 19th-century creation that saw the United States treat the Western Hemisphere as its exclusive sphere of influence, has re-emerged in relevance along with tariffs and territorial agreements.
Carlos Puig, a popular columnist in Mexico City, said Latin America was worried about the return of Mr. Trump more than any other part of the world.
“This is Trump, with majorities in both houses, after four years of complaining, a guy who only cares about himself and wins at all costs,” said Mr. Puig. “It’s not easy for a man like him not to show that he’s trying to fulfill his promises, no matter how crazy they are. I’m not so sure it’s all just bullying and almost comical provocations.”
But how much can Mr. Trump?
His press conference in Florida mixed vague threats (“You might have to do something”) with messianic promises (“I’m talking about protecting the free world”).
It was more than enough to awaken other nations, attracting attention and resistance even before he took office.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot warned on Wednesday against threatening the European Union’s “sovereign borders” – referring to the Danish territory of Greenland. He added that “we have entered an era where we are seeing the return of the law of the fittest.”
What may be harder to see than Mar-a-Lago, but much talked about in foreign capitals: Many countries are simply fed up with the America that Mr. Trump wants to be great again.
While the United States is still a dominant power, it has less leverage than it did in the 1980s or 1890s, not only because of the rise of China, but because of what many nations see as America itself drifting into dysfunction and debt, coupled with increased growth from other countries.
The international system the United States helped create after World War II prioritized trade in hopes of preventing conquest—and it worked well enough to build pathways to prosperity that made American unilateralism less powerful.
As Sarang Shidore, director of the global south program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, explained, many developing nations “are smarter, more assertive and capable, even as the US has become less predictable and stable.”
In other words, today the world is in turmoil. The post-war equilibrium is shaken by wars in Europe and the Middle East. from the authoritarian partnership of China, Russia and North Korea; from a weakened Iran seeking nuclear weapons. and from climate change and artificial intelligence.
The end of the 19th century was also turbulent. The mistake that Mr. Trump, according to historians, is that he believes the world can calm down and simplify with extra real estate in the US.
The protectionist, imperialist era that Mr. Trump blew up when Germany and Italy tried to support most of the world. The result was two world wars.
“We saw how that went with the weapons of the 20th century,” said Mr. Immerwahr, author of “How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States.” “It’s potentially much more dangerous in the 21st.”
