Predation Without Apology: Trump Defrocks the Long Western Tradition

The Trump predation does not mark a departure from Western history; it signals the end of its traditional justifications. For centuries, Western ruling elites relied on intricate theological and philosophical frameworks to justify predation—the taking of foreign resources through force, deception, or coercion. During President Donald Trump’s tenure, these frameworks are no longer necessary. Predation persists, but its rhetorical disguise has been stripped away. What remains is the U.S. asymmetric power advantage, openly asserting itself against weaker targets like Venezuela, while remaining cautious around stronger foes like China.

To understand Trump’s predatory stance toward Venezuela, Greenland, and possibly other targets, one must resist the urge to see it as abnormal. Trump’s actions make perfect sense when viewed within the long Western tradition where predation repeatedly overshadowed the opposition of each era. Medieval Christianity, the Enlightenment, and international law all claimed universal authority. None of these systems managed to stop Western ruling elites, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the French, the Dutch, or the English, particularly when their unequal power allowed them to prey on the weak, the core logic of predation that humans learn from natural law.

This commentary (a summary of a larger work in progress) offers historical context of predation, not to criticize Western nations or defend President Trump, but to present evidence that for centuries, predation has been a major paradigm shaping Western relations with weaker countries blessed with natural resources. The idea that all nations are predators and that singling out select Western nations is analytical bias is not part of this work in progress or this commentary.

Divine Predation

Western predation was initially sanctified by theology. Medieval Christian rulers did not present themselves as thieves, but as agents of divine order executing a sacred mandate. Papal instruments such as Romanus Pontifex did not merely bless conquest; they reclassified non-Christian lands as lacking legitimate moral and spiritual ownership, rendering seizure lawful in advance. This theological justification later hardened into legal concepts, such as terra nullius, that stripped target populations of standing altogether, turning dispossession from a crime into an act of rectification.

This Christian logic established a durable precedent in the West for centuries: when the target resources in West Africa or the Americas are held by non-Christians, predation is s lawful, a predatory theology that the Portuguese and the Spaniards exploited fully. Trump’s dismissal of Venezuelan sovereignty follows the same structure, though stripped of religious language. Where papal bulls once declared lands empty of God, Trump’s predation treats certain states as empty of legitimacy.

Enlightenment Predation

The Enlightenment that emerged to correct the medieval superstitions did not dismantle predation; it rationalized it. Thinkers such as James Mill and John Stuart Mill provided philosophical grammar for imperial domination. James Mill’s claim that India under the Mughal Empire was stagnant and irrational justified British rule first through a trading company, later directly. John Stuart Mill’s famous defense of libertyexplicitly excluded “barbarian” societies, for whom despotism was deemed a legitimate instrument of improvement.

The Enlightenment arguments replaced divine command with developmental hierarchy. Predation was no longer the will of God but the white man’s burden to help unfortunate nations to progress. Resources were seized not because they were desired, but because natives were allegedly incapable of using them properly. This reasoning survives intact in modern economic discourse, where sanctions, privatization, and regime change are framed as necessary steps toward rational governance.

Trump does not repudiate this civilization tradition; he abbreviates it. Rather than invoking development or civilization, he reduces the logic to its core: “They have it. We want it. We can take it.” The argument that if the U.S. runs Venezuela, the Venezuelans would be better off is a sort of Enlightenment argument, but its importance is secondary to the America First principle that Trump espouses without any moral twisting.

Pedagogy of Violence

Alexis de Tocqueville holds a significant place in the Western history of predation. Known for his praise of American democracy, Tocqueville also supported extreme violence in colonial Algeria. He justified the destruction of Algerian villages, crops, and livelihoods as necessary actions against populations who only understood force. This was not a contradiction; it was a fundamental insight. Liberal institutions built on liberty and rights benefit Western nations, while domination remains essential for non-Western nations, which President Trump boldly calls “shitholes.”

Trump has added tough language to the pedagogy of violence, overriding the American tradition of “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Yet, Trump’s foreign policy follows a distinctly Tocquevillian bifurcation. Constitutional protections and democratic norms function as domestic privileges for select communities rather than universal constraints. Beyond the national boundary, overwhelming force—economic or military—is treated not only as permissible but as instructive. Sanctions that devastate civilian populations are justified as pressure mechanisms, largely indifferent to humanitarian cost. Like Tocqueville’s defense of razzias in Algeria, suffering becomes instrumental: violence is not an aberration but a teaching method applied to those deemed incapable of persuasion, whether labeled barbarians or rogue regimes.

International Law Promise

After two devastating world wars, mainly fought in Europe, twentieth-century international law promised a break from predatory behavior. Sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-intervention, enshrined in the United Nations Charter, were supposed to be universal principles binding on all nations. Ironically, these norms were established by the same Western powers that have systemically engaged in predation.

International law began to break apart as soon as it was promised, acting more like a filter than a barrier: it restricts weaker states while granting stronger states interpretive flexibility to create loopholes in its enforcement.

Trump has dispensed with the pretense of interpreting international law to justify predation. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law,” is the frank admission of a person who sees no profit in dishonest morality. Where some states violate international law while affirming its authority, Trump treats it as an irrelevant game-playing. The legality of sanctions, asset seizures, or threats of force matters less than their enforceability. This posture is shocking only to those who confuse legal language with legal power.

Venezuela: Amoral Predation

Venezuela represents the clearest case of predation in the Trump era. Venezuela, with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, also lacked the military, financial, and diplomatic capacity to resist the U.S. power advantage. This asymmetry made predation viable. Sanctions degrade the economy, delegitimize leadership, and transfer control over national assets abroad. Claims that Venezuelan oil “belongs” to U.S. companies echo colonial arguments that natives lack proper title to their own resources.

In every era, Western scholars opposed what they witnessed. For example, Bartolomé de las Casasopposed the Spanish cruelty in the Americas. Even in the Trump times, scholarly opposition is immediate and robust. International law scholars, like Professor Craig Martin, cite prohibitions on intervention and on the seizure of resources. Economists warn of a humanitarian catastrophe. Yet none of this alters the predation policy. As in earlier eras, scholarly critique fails not because it is intellectually deficient, but because it is irrelevant to decision-makers insulated by asymmetric power advantaged over adversaries and driven to seize assets in foreign lands.

Trump Difference

Trump’s significance lies not in innovation but in disclosure. He reveals that the long Western tradition of predation no longer requires moral camouflage. His declaration that only his own morality constrains his actions echoes the implicit doctrine of every predatory elite before him. The difference is unarming honesty. Where William the Conqueror spoke of inheritance in seizing England in 1066, and James Mill spoke of utilitarian happiness to justify colonialism, Trump speaks the language of “I can do it.”

This candor unsettles observers and ahistorical moralists because it exposes a continuity many do not know, hide, or prefer to deny. Faith, reason, and law have not failed ‘recently’; they have always failed in the algorithms of the Western ruling elites. Trump merely refuses to pretend otherwise.

It is historically instructive that the same Western countries that remained silent or hesitant about Trump’s actions in Venezuela are now upset over Greenland. This makes sense because, in the case of Greenland, Trump’s action hits at the core of the Western world, making the pain feel more real than distant.

Conclusion

 A brief view of history presented in this commentary supports a grim conclusion. Predation recedes only when power asymmetry collapses—when targets acquire deterrent power, competitors impose costs, or resistance raises acquisition risks. Moral systems, much less law, do not defeat predation; power does. Trump’s era is therefore not a moral low point but a diagnostic moment. It shows Western predation operating without disguise, apology, or metaphysical cover.

In this sense, Trump does not corrupt Western values. He demonstrates their operational limits. If all you have is the law to defend your resources, warns history, you show little respect for the Western tradition of predation.

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