Predation Without Apology: Trump Defrocks the Long Western Tradition |
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
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........