Trump

When Donald J. Trump won a return to the White House, many countries thought they knew what to (a)   and how to prepare for what was coming.

Bigger nations developed plans to soften or counter his threat of (a)   tariffs.

For those eager to (a)   substance from bluster, it looked like another performance of scattershot bravado

For Mr. Trump, China looms — ready, in his view, to take territory far from its own borders. He has falsely accused Beijing of (a)   the American-built Panama Canal.

As countries became more powerful, they were expected to physically grow, and rivalries were redrawing maps and (a)   conflicts from Asia to the Caribbean.

The United States (a)   Europe’s colonial designs when it annexed Guam and Puerto Rico in 1898.

This is part of a pattern of the U.S. exerting control, or trying to, over areas of the globe perceived to be American interests, without having to summon up the (a)   words ‘empire,’ ‘colonies’ or ‘imperialism,’

Mr. Trump’s threats of territorial takeover may be simply a transactional starting (a)   or some kind of personal wish.

Panama and its neighbors tend to see Mr. Trump’s comments as a (a)   of both the 1890s and the 1980s.

His news conference in Florida mixed vague threats (“It might be that you’ll have to do something”) with (a)   promises (“I’m talking about protecting the free world”).