Daniel Immerwahr

You see why it's inaccurate, because Trump is clearly not an isolationist.

He really likes bombing other countries.

The United States has done what it's done in Venezuela and is now threatening to do it in Greenland.

What tensions will that produce about oil supply or anything else with Russia and China?

That's a great question.

On the one hand, you might think...

Any move by the United States, especially where China and Russia have interest, is an incursion against them, right?

So the United States gets the oil, China doesn't get the oil.

The United States gets the rare minerals, China doesn't get the rare minerals.

On the other hand, every time this happens...

it's a little more possible for China and Russia to lock down mineral and oil supplies in other places, wherever they want them.

So if we are going to tilt from a world where goods are sourced on the market and the market is kept open and the peace is kept by an international system to a world of power blocks, that might not be a bad thing for Russia and China, even if they lose a little in particular countries.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

We're talking today about the United States and the world, the seizure of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, threats against nations from Cuba to Denmark, and the way that Donald Trump uses history to justify his view of the world order.

My guest today is the historian Daniel Imavar, who writes in the New Yorker about what the Venezuela operation tells us about Trumpism.

Imavar is the author of the book How to Hide an Empire, a best-selling account of the U.S.

and its overseas possessions.

Now, I think we need a history lesson.

We need to be reminded of the specifics of what were the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine, which Trump keeps invoking after seizing Maduro and invading Venezuela.