Asset Seizures and Territorial Threats: The Real 'America First' Record

On January 2, 2020, the U.S. assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani via drone strike, an act that brought the nation to the threshold of open war. While the strike was framed as a security measure, it served as the kinetic peak of a 'maximum pressure' campaign initiated by the 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA. This strategy aimed to collapse the Iranian economy through sanctions, benefiting domestic oil producers by removing 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude per day from the global market. Defense contractors Raytheon and Lockheed Martin saw immediate stock price surges following the escalation, signaling a profitable shift toward unilateral military action without traditional declarations of war.

In Latin America, the administration moved beyond rhetoric to active regime change. In 2019, the U.S. recognized Juan Guaidó as the President of Venezuela and enacted Executive Order 13884, which froze all Venezuelan government assets in the United States. Special Representative Elliott Abrams and National Security Advisor John Bolton targeted the 'Troika of Tyranny,' a policy designed to secure control over Venezuelan oil reserves—the largest in the world. Simultaneously, the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act allowed U.S. citizens to sue companies over property seized during the 1959 Cuban Revolution, a move that disrupted billions in European and Canadian investments on the island.

Territorial acquisition has moved from the fringe to the center of policy. In August 2019, Trump proposed the purchase of Greenland from Denmark, targeting the island’s estimated $30 trillion in untapped rare-earth minerals and the strategic 'GIUK gap' used for monitoring Russian naval movements. When the Danish Prime Minister declined, a planned state visit was canceled. By late 2024, the rhetoric expanded to the Panama Canal, with Trump suggesting the U.S. should 'take back' the critical waterway, and Canada, where threats of 25% tariffs were paired with public jokes about the nation becoming the '51st state.'

Mainstream coverage often characterizes these actions as 'unpredictable' or 'chaotic' outbursts. However, the data reveals a methodical application of transactionalism. By leveraging the U.S. position as the world's primary consumer market and reserve currency holder, the administration uses economic threats to force sovereign nations into resource or policy concessions. This is not isolationism; it is expansionism rebranded as a trade negotiation, where the stakes are the physical assets of foreign states.

For the average American, this strategy carries a hidden invoice. The use of sanctions as a primary tool of statecraft destabilizes foreign economies, which directly drives the mass migration waves seen at the U.S. southern border. Furthermore, the reliance on tariffs and trade wars increases the cost of consumer goods, effectively serving as a domestic tax. The rhetoric of 'taking' foreign assets increases the risk of a miscalculation that could lead to a large-scale kinetic conflict, putting both national security and global economic stability at risk.