Trump's scheme to create '55 states across three continents' exposed: analysis

President Donald Trump's unprecedented push to annex new territories for the U.S. has caused widespread global uproars in his second term, with a new breakdown from The i Paper revealing his grand scheme to take over the entire western hemisphere with "55 states across three continents."

Trump raised huge alarms across Canada soon after his return to the White House last year with his insistence that the country should submit to becoming the 51st U.S. state. As those threats died down, he renewed his obsession with annexing Greenland, causing an international incident all across Europe as he refused to rule out military aggression against a NATO ally. More recently, he shared a Truth Social post depicting Venezuela as the 51st state, following his heavy rhetoric about the U.S. controlling the South American nations after kidnapping its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Other advances have also been hinted at against the likes of Cuba and Panama, with Trump showing particular interest in seizing control of the Panama Canal for the U.S.

Writing for The i Paper on Monday, former BBC correspondent Paul Wood explained that the full extent of Trump's new spin on "Manifest Destiny" would see the U.S. ballooning to 55 states, with new presences across two more continents.

"In his first term, Trump was an ‘America First’ isolationist. Now, he is an ‘America First’ imperialist," Wood wrote. "This is Trump’s version of Manifest Destiny, the 19th-century belief that Americans were divinely ordained to expand west across the continent. Trump’s Manifest Destiny would see the US take over the entire Western Hemisphere. His former consigliere Steve Bannon said: 'How can you get more ‘America First’ than Manifest Destiny 2.0?'"

Allies of Trump have described this new push from Trump as his "Donroe Doctrine," a riff on President James Monroe's "Doctrine," which asserted the Western Hemisphere was exclusively the "sphere of interest" of the U.S. Such imperialistic urges running afoul of the "self-determination" rules at the heart of the United Nations, Wood argued that Trump "knows little and cares less about international law," and is approaching this scheme from his default perspective as a real estate investor.

Wood also argued that the idea of expanding the number of states would also play into Trump's obsession with his own legacy as an impactful president.

"Trump once said it would be a 'good idea' to put his face on Mount Rushmore," Wood wrote. "Adding another state or two to the Union might even accomplish this. And if Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Canada, Panama and others do not want to be new stars on the American flag, Trump’s gaze is lifted to yet more distant horizons."

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