The Death Throes of Globalism?

The Rise of Greater America, the Fall of USAID, and the Birth of Mar-a-Gaza: Trumpian Spectacle or Strategic Retrenchment?

Greater America

Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan has long been drawn to sweeping pronouncements, many of which have failed to materialize. In 2022, he predicted both the economic collapse of China and Russia’s military defeat. Yet now, in the early weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency, events tell a different story. China remains a resilient economic force, adapting to external pressures with characteristic pragmatism. Russia, far from retreating, has solidified territorial gains in Ukraine, moving steadily toward its achieving all its strategic goals. Once again, reality has outpaced Zeihan’s forecasts.

And yet, for all his errors, one of his central ideas remains strikingly relevant. He has long argued that as U.S. global dominance wanes, a moment will come when America will reject the burdens of sustaining the international order. At this juncture, the U.S. would "take its geopolitical football and go home," retreating inward to fortify a continental empire, securing North America and extending influence deeper into Central America. If Trump’s second term thus far signals anything, it is that America is at least performing the motions of such a retreat. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared the unipolar era over, proclaiming the arrival of a multipolar world, one in which America is no longer willing—or able—to dictate terms.

Yet this retreat is neither clean nor absolute. It is accompanied by half-hearted threats of tariffs, mostly aimed at America’s own allies—the UK, Canada, the EU—as well as adversaries like China and Mexico. At times it reads as negotiation more than a withdrawal, a demonstration of leverage in an uncertain transition.

Zeihan’s thesis, though devoid of Marxist intent, resonates with Antonio Gramsci’s notion of the "interregnum"—the liminal phase in which the old order is dying, but the new has yet to be born. As Gramsci observed, such moments produce "morbid symptoms," disruptions and instabilities that mark the struggle between past and future. America, even in decline, retains two formidable instruments of influence: the reach of its navy and the dominance of the U.S. dollar. These tools will not simply fade but may instead be wielded as weapons—withdrawn selectively to create chaos and demonstrate their necessity. Currency crises, supply chain disruptions, and regional conflicts become both consequence and strategy, reminders that even in retreat, American power is not easily ignored.

Capitalist Cycles

Capitalism has always been a restless force, forever seeking new centres of gravity. It began in the labyrinthine alleys of 15th-century Venice, where merchants and oligarchs first wove commerce into a system of capitalist power. From there, it drifted—first to the bourse of Antwerp, then to the banking houses of Genoa, the trading fleets of Amsterdam, the counting rooms of London, and finally to the skyscrapers of New York. Now, the cycle repeats once more, the centre shifting eastward to Shanghai and Beijing.

Fernand Braudel, the father of the theory of capitalist cycles

The logic of this transition is neither accidental nor surprising; it is written into the very fabric of capitalism itself, which thrives on the continual displacement of its own foundations. Each new epoch is born not from mere succession but from destruction, as the old order is broken down to clear space for the new. This is capitalism’s dialectic: it annihilates what it creates, erasing the structures it once depended on, always moving forward with little regard for the past.

The United States had once commanded the cycle of industrial production. You could see its remnants in the rusting steel of the Midwest, the great factory towns that, for a time, gave America its economic backbone. But in the 1980s under Reagan, as industrial profit margins declined, the country slowly but surely abandoned production for financialization, trading real industry for speculation, tangible goods for abstractions.

This shift felt triumphant in the moment—a rush of wealth, a new kind of empire built on the unseen forces of capital flows and derivatives. But with every skyscraper that rose in Manhattan, a factory was shuttered in Ohio. The prosperity was hollow, and now the cycle turns once more. China, through sheer discipline and historical cunning, has positioned itself as the new industrial core, while America, intoxicated by its own myths, stumbles into decline.

It is in these moments of transition that history becomes most legible. When Genoa faded, it fastened itself to Amsterdam. When Amsterdam gave way, its capital and expertise found a home in London. When Britain’s empire waned, it accepted its place beneath the American sun. Each time, the fallen hegemon adapted, finding ways to leech from the new order even as it relinquished power.

But America, it seems, will not go so gently. Trump’s project is not one of adaptation, but of consolidation—a turning inward, not in retreat, but in the deliberate reforging of power. "Greater America" is not mere isolationism; it is the assertion of a new order, a geopolitical fortress stretching from the Arctic to the Panama Canal. It envisions a hemisphere bound not by alliances but by dominion, where Canada and Greenland are absorbed into the core, while Mexico and Central America are drawn into its orbit as managed dependencies.

This is not a desperate withdrawal but a calculated severance, a rejection of entanglements in favour of self-sufficiency on a scale never before seen. Unlike past empires whose autarkic visions collapsed under the weight of scarcity, Greater America stands on an expanse of unparalleled abundance. It could command the mineral wealth of the Canadian Shield, the vast grain fields of the Midwest, the energy reserves of Alaska and Texas, and the labour power of its southern reaches. Spanning from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, it is an empire of all latitudes, capable of sustaining itself without submission to the new global order.

If the United States cannot remain the hegemon of the world, then it will become the hegemon of a world apart. It is a threat, but one grounded in material reality—less a fantasy than a cold and looming possibility.

The myth of American exceptionalism has long obscured the inevitability of decline, but history grants no exemptions. The contours of a new Chinese-led world order are already emerging, and America—rather than resigning itself to a diminished role within it—is positioning itself as an alternative, a power unwilling to be subsumed. This is not merely obstinacy but a strategic gambit, a recognition that the transfer of hegemony is not always seamless. Where past empires yielded and adapted, America is testing the limits of refusal, seeking not to halt history’s momentum but to redirect its course.

Unliving USAID: Draining the Globalist Swamp

Trump 1.0 was a spectacle of rhetorical excess, a carnival of promises that shimmered with the aura of transformation but dissolved into the fog of inertia. The rallying cry to "drain the swamp" electrified the masses, yet the swamp endured, its murky depths undisturbed by the flailing gestures of an administration ensnared in its own chaos. The institutions Trump vowed to dismantle proved resilient, fortified by bureaucratic inertia and the weight of their own history. What emerged was not upheaval but theatre—a performance of disruption that left the stage unchanged.

In 2025 however, the story has taken a sudden, revolutionary turn. In just two weeks, Donald Trump has upended America, shattered old alliances, and sent shockwaves rippling across the globe. The institutions that once formed the bedrock of U.S. power—the CIA, the FBI, the Treasury Department, and above all, the State Department—are being gutted in a sweeping purge. USAID, long a quiet hand guiding the so-called Color Revolutions abroad, now stands exposed, its hidden machinery dragged into the light.

The old order is crumbling, its defenders scrambling to hold their ground. Some call it a reckoning, others a coup. To Trump's loyalists, it is the long-overdue housecleaning of a corrupt bureaucracy. To his enemies, it is the potential death knell of the American-led Collective West. Across the world, governments and markets watch with bated breath, uncertain whether this is the beginning of a new, yet smaller empire, or the final act of a collapsing one. The Greek word apocalypse does not mean destruction but revelation. And now, the veil is being lifted.

USAID presents itself as a force for good—an agency devoted to spreading democracy, alleviating poverty, and rebuilding nations. But beneath the slogans and press releases lies a different reality. Again and again, USAID money has found its way into the hands of insurgents, oligarchs, and war profiteers, leaving a trail of instability in its wake.

In Ukraine, it bankrolled opposition groups and media outlets that helped bring down a democratically elected government in 2014, throwing the country into chaos and fuelling a war that still rages today. In Afghanistan, under the cover of "development aid," it poured funds into projects that coincided suspiciously with the explosion of the heroin trade, turning the country into the world’s largest producer of opium. In China, before the world had ever heard of COVID-19, USAID was quietly financing coronavirus research at a Wuhan laboratory, a connection that officials have been careful not to examine too closely. And in Chile, decades earlier, it played its part in the slow, deliberate strangulation of the political system, helping to pave the way for Pinochet’s coup and the bloodshed that followed.

Yet scepticism lingers. Will Trump, the self-proclaimed disruptor, really drive in the knife deep enough to kill the beast? If he does, it may indeed mark another step in America’s strategic retreat from its global empire, a withdrawal into its North American fortress. The death of USAID will not unravel the global order overnight, but its tentacles—those far-reaching instruments of soft power—will wither, leaving behind a world reshaped by the absence of American intervention. In this act of retrenchment, the spectacle of empire gives way to the silence of retreat, a historical rupture that echoes with the contradictions of a nation in decline.

Stripping Gaza

The greatest obstacle to an American retreat from empire is its entanglement with Israel—a relationship that binds U.S. foreign policy to the Middle East with an almost unbreakable grip. Since the 1960s, the U.S. has been Israel’s principal benefactor, supplying billions in military aid, advanced weaponry, and unwavering diplomatic support. This is not merely a strategic arrangement; it is a fusion of political, ideological, and cultural imperatives. For Israel, American protection is existential, a shield against Iran, Syria, and non-state adversaries.

Any attempt by the U.S. to withdraw from global commitments is thus complicated by the reality that Israel’s security depends on American military guarantees. A true retreat would mean abandoning the role of protector, exposing Israel to an increasingly volatile region and, by extension, destabilizing Washington’s own political order. AIPAC and other lobbying forces ensure that this tether remains firm, making disengagement nearly impossible without a seismic shift in both strategic thinking and national mythology.

Yesterday, President Trump, his baby blue tie a soft and permeable counterpoint to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commanding red, held the chair for his counterpart in a tableau of deference and dominance. With a flourish, Trump announced what could only be described as a tabula rasa for the Gaza Strip—a vision of erasure and renewal, a concept as familiar to urban planners as it is to real estate developers. The Palestinians, he declared, would be escorted from their crumbling hovels and herded into refugee camps in Jordan and Egypt. This special sanitary operation is to be framed as a win-win opening to progress. Once cleansed of all human detritus, the Gaza Strip would be reborn under the guiding hand of American annexation. Creative destruction strikes again, unfortunately not first in rusted Midwest factories, but pride of place is reserved for resurrecting the jagged concrete ruins of Gaza.

A servant holds the chair for his master

In addition, momentum is building in America to support Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, soon to be officially rebranded by Congress under its Israeli designation: Judea and Samaria. This linguistic shift signals not just a cartographic revision but the formalization of an emerging geopolitical order. With the U.S. set to absorb Gaza and Israel poised to claim full sovereignty over the West Bank, the longstanding anxieties over Israeli security will be significantly eased. A newly shared border between the two nations will transform Israel into a de facto 51st state—no longer merely an ally but an extension of American territory. As an imperial outpost of the U.S. military, Israel will be shielded from the precariousness that haunts American bases on Arab soil, ensuring its permanence as a fixed, unassailable presence in the region.

This rhetorical lightning strike immediately ignited a debate over the ever-elusive question: On which dimension is Trump now playing chess? Is this yet another instance of his signature unpredictability, a negotiating tactic meant to dazzle and disorient? How seriously should his words be taken, given his long history of grand pronouncements that later dissolve into ambiguity? Some argue that this is mere performance, a calculated gesture to placate the Israeli lobby and win the unwavering support of Zionist oligarchs. In exchange for such emphatic backing of the Greater Israel project, is Trump subtly manoeuvring them into accepting his broader vision of American retrenchment—a pivot inward that would see the U.S. shed many global burdens while preserving some imperial leverage in the Middle East? As always with Trump, his words function like a hall of mirrors, forcing allies and enemies alike to guess at which reflection is real.