America first: Hemispheric dominance?

America first: Hemispheric dominance?

From Geography Matters by Chris Hamnett

January 11, 2026 · 38 min · Season 2 · Episode 9

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of American foreign policy shifts under President Trump, focusing on hemispheric dominance and geopolitical dynamics.

In this episode we follow up on the implications of the American capture of President Maduro of Venezuela and President Trump's anouncements about the nature and future of American foreign policy. We apologise if it seems we are paying undue attention to this but it is very important and is radically reshaping the world we live in. President Trump has also announced (again) that the USA needs Greenland for national security, that he will run Venezuela and its oil sales and that he aims to control the western hemisphere: that it the half of the globe which stretches from the mid Pacific to the Greenwich meridian in London and includes both north and south America, Canada, Greenland and the Caribbean. This represents both a pull back from previous American foreign policy which saw itself as a global 'hegemon' running what is termed the rules based international order, to a much more explicit 'America first' focusing primarily on the western hemisphere. This has implications for Europe which president Trump now seems to see as not very important, and for the role of major global powers - notably America, China and Russia. We discuss to what extent, if at all, it is possible to draw…

People in this episode

Host: Chris Hamnett

Topics covered

  • American foreign policy
  • Hemispheric dominance
  • Geopolitical implications
  • Trump administration
  • Global power dynamics
  • Orwellian parallels

Keywords

  • foreign policy
  • Trump
  • Venezuela
  • Greenland
  • geopolitics
  • America first
  • 1984
  • global powers

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: 1984

Places: Venezuela, Greenland, America, Europe, China, Russia

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