Trump's fresh perspective on 250 years of American expansionism

Trump's new take on 250 years of American expansionism

Over the 250 years since the United States declared independence from Great Britain, it has transformed from a thin strip of settlements along the Atlantic coast into a global superpower spanning a continent and projecting influence worldwide.

From the original 13 colonies, covering roughly 430,000 square miles (1.1 million sq km), the country's territory has expanded more than eightfold to about 3.7 million square miles. Its population has also surged—from around four million people, including enslaved individuals, recorded in the first US Census in 1790 to an estimated 343 million in 2025, representing an increase of more than 8,400%.

Although today's America would be almost unrecognisable to its founders, many of the country's political and cultural debates remain rooted in its earliest history. Issues such as immigration, federal authority and territorial expansion continue to shape national politics and have resurfaced prominently under President Donald Trump.

The nation's founders envisioned a prosperous republic, but its survival was far from certain. Bitter disagreements over slavery, the Constitution, governance and economic policy exposed deep divisions from the outset. Even after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled US territory, the War of 1812 against Britain raised fresh doubts about whether the young nation could endure.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College argues that many observers at the time expected the fragile republic to collapse under its internal divisions.

Despite those uncertainties, the ideological foundations of modern America were already taking shape.

Colin Woodard, director of the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University, argues that the United States developed several distinct regional identities rooted in its early settlement patterns.

The northern region, or "Yankeeland", was shaped largely by Puritan settlers and later waves of German and Scandinavian immigrants, fostering a tradition that favoured pluralism and an active role for government.

By contrast, the region Woodard calls "Greater Appalachia" was settled primarily by Scots-Irish migrants who valued personal liberty and viewed government authority with deep suspicion. For many in this tradition, freedom is defined by limiting state power and maximising individual autonomy.

The Deep South, meanwhile, evolved into a hierarchical society dominated by wealthy landowners, including plantation owners who had migrated from the Caribbean, reinforcing an oligarchic political culture.

While these competing traditions emerged from successive waves of European settlement, the country's expansion also came at the expense of Indigenous peoples, whose cultures were systematically displaced as the United States pushed westward.

During the 19th century, territorial growth was increasingly justified by the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny"—the belief that the nation was destined to expand across North America and potentially beyond. As settlers moved west, regional political cultures mixed and often clashed. The rugged interior attracted fiercely independent settlers, while the Pacific coast became home to merchants and migrants from the northeastern states.

Many of these historical divisions remain visible in contemporary American politics. Liberal strongholds along the Northeast and West Coast generally support a more active federal government, while much of the South and interior West has become the backbone of Republican conservatism.

Although US territorial expansion largely ended by the close of the 19th century, immigration became the principal driver of national growth.

Richardson argues that immigration has always been central to the American identity, linking generations through the belief that newcomers can build a better future.

The first major immigration wave, beginning in the 1840s, brought around 14 million people—mainly from northern and western Europe. A second wave from southern and eastern Europe added more than 18 million immigrants between the 1890s and the 1920s. Each period of large-scale immigration sparked political backlash, leading to restrictive measures such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1924, which sharply curtailed new arrivals.

Modern immigration accelerated again after reforms in the 1960s dismantled many of those restrictions. Since then, more than 70 million immigrants have entered the United States, including roughly 18 million from Mexico.

By 2024, foreign-born residents accounted for 14.8% of the US population—the highest share since 1890, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Immigration was responsible for 84% of the country's population growth that year.

Woodard argues that earlier immigration waves strengthened the industrial North politically, contributing to tensions with the South, whose leaders sought territorial expansion to preserve the balance of power through the addition of slave states—a conflict that ultimately culminated in the Civil War.

Today, however, migration patterns have shifted. Many immigrants and Americans relocating from northern states are settling in fast-growing southern states such as Texas and Florida, while illegal immigration across the southern border has become one of the country's most contentious political issues.

Trump's political agenda reflects these demographic and geographic changes. Since returning to the White House, he has pursued large-scale deportations and revived rhetoric about territorial expansion, including proposals involving Greenland, the Panama Canal and even suggestions that Canada or Venezuela could become US states.

His vision represents a reversal of America's historical trajectory. After spending its first century expanding territorially and its second increasingly opening itself to immigration, Trump advocates expanding US strategic reach while tightening immigration controls.

Trump and his supporters argue that large-scale immigration threatens the country's identity, frequently warning that America risks losing its national character.

Woodard says this reflects one of the enduring questions in US history: whether America is fundamentally a civic nation built on shared democratic ideals, or a country primarily defined by ancestry and cultural heritage.

In the broader sweep of history, 250 years is a relatively brief period. Yet for the United States, those two and a half centuries have transformed a fledgling republic into a global power, even as the political divisions and debates that shaped its founding continue to influence its future.