‘America First’ is the Dawn of New American Imperialism

The U.S. invasion of Venezuela signals a decisive return to overt imperialism, reshaping global politics around coercion rather than consent.

Salman Rafi Sheikh

The US has crossed a threshold not seen since the high imperialism of the 19th century. In the opening days of 2026, the Trump administration militarily invaded Venezuela, bombarded its capital, and captured President Nicolás Maduro, justifying the seizure as a defense of US interests. Whether it is threats to strike Iran again or provocative assertions that the US might “need” Greenland so badly that military force remains “always an option,” the message is clear: today’s Washington believes might makes right, and no sovereign state is safe from American power.

The Imperial Rhetoric

The Venezuelan operation was not cloaked in the familiar language of humanitarian intervention or collective security. It was justified as a blunt assertion of U.S. national interest. Within hours, the president’s allies threatened to extend U.S. military pressure on multiple states — from Colombia and Cuba to Mexico and Iran — in language that resembles 19th-century power politics more than 21st-century diplomacy. In the context of Trump’s ‘America First’ narrative, the rhetoric from the White House’s own advisers confirms this shift. Top aide Stephen Miller told CNN that the US “is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically” and that it was “absurd” to let nations in the hemisphere supply resources to US adversaries but not to America. He even asserted that “sovereign countries do not get sovereignty if the US wants their resources.” And it does not stop at resource extraction. Miller went further: “Greenland should be part of the United States,” questioning the legitimacy of Denmark’s control and dismissing resistance: “Nobody’s going to fight the US militarily over the future of Greenland.”

A Challenge to a New Global Order

US imperialism, therefore, could become a permanent feature of US foreign policy

Such assertions of power do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they show an effective embrace of the geopolitics of (dis)order. For the last decade, China and Russia have been building alternative architectures — economic, diplomatic, and security-based — to counterbalance US dominance. From the Belt and Road Initiative to expanded Eurasian alliances, these powers have offered a model of multipolarity in which American unilateralism is no longer the default.

At the center of this challenge sits BRICS, which has evolved from a loose economic grouping into an increasingly assertive political platform representing a majority of the world’s population and a growing share of global GDP. BRICS — now expanded to include major energy producers and regional powers — was designed to reduce dependence on Western-controlled financial systems, weaken the political leverage of US sanctions, and promote a multipolar distribution of power. Its push for alternative development banks, non-dollar trade mechanisms, and South-South cooperation directly threatens Washington’s ability to discipline states through economic and financial pressure.

It is precisely this erosion of US leverage that makes naked imperialism attractive for policymakers in the US again. When influence through institutions declines, coercion through force fills the gap. The message sent by the US attack on Venezuela and threats against Iran and Greenland is unmistakable: attempts to escape the US-led system will be met not merely with sanctions, but with military force.

This reliance on force fundamentally alters global politics. Countries contemplating deeper engagement with BRICS or other non-Western frameworks now face an implicit threat — that strategic autonomy itself may provoke US retaliation. In such a world, sovereignty becomes conditional, reserved only for states aligned with American interests. That is not a rule-based order; it is an imperial hierarchy enforced by military power.

How US Rivals Must Respond to an Openly Imperial America

For China and Russia, the return of overt American imperialism is not merely a challenge; it is a strategic inflection point. That reality demands a recalibration of how US rivals and the broader BRICS constellation, respond.

China’s response cannot remain confined to trade, infrastructure, and diplomacy alone. While the Belt and Road Initiative and yuan-denominated trade have reduced economic dependence on the West, they do little to protect states from direct military coercion. Beijing must therefore deepen security coordination — not necessarily through formal alliances, but through defense cooperation, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic deterrence that raise the costs of US interventionism. Strategic ambiguity may once have been an asset; under conditions of naked imperialism, it becomes a liability.

Russia, for its part, has long warned that US unilateralism would erode global stability. That warning has now materialized. Moscow’s challenge is to translate military reach and diplomatic experience into multilateral restraint mechanisms, which might help reinforce norms of sovereignty not rhetorically, but through coordinated political resistance across Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The objective is not escalation, but deterrence through collective posture.

BRICS, however, is where this response must ultimately coalesce. If BRICS is to be more than an economic forum, it must evolve into a political shield for strategic autonomy. That does not require becoming a military bloc, but it does require explicit commitments: rejection of regime-change operations, opposition to territorial seizure, and coordinated responses — diplomatic, economic, and legal — to acts of aggression. Silence or fragmentation will only invite further coercion.

It will also be a mistake for these powers—and Europe too—to expect that US policies will change once Trump exits the White House in a few years. The problem is that Trump is pushing America onto a path that will harden over time, making it extremely difficult for any future president to change it. Trump started the ‘trade war’ in 2016/17. Joe Biden, coming from a different party, could not scale it back. In fact, he only increased its scope. US imperialism, therefore, could become a permanent feature of US foreign policy. Therefore, China, Russia, and other powers need to calculate their future keeping this hard reality in mind.

Critically, this is not about confronting the US everywhere at once — an impossible task — but about denying Washington the assumption that it can act anywhere without consequence. The more states act collectively to limit US freedom of coercion, the faster that threshold is reached. In this sense, the Trump administration’s turn to imperial force may accelerate precisely what it seeks to prevent: a world in which American power is no longer feared as inevitable, but resisted as excessive. Thus, the future of global order will depend less on US promises and more on the collective capacity of other powers to enforce a principle too long assumed universal: that no state is above restraint.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs