There are many examples of how the United States acts as a rogue state.
The US government is waging a full-frontal assault on international law, aggressively attacking multilateral institutions.
US unilateralism has been a bipartisan phenomenon, going back decades, but it has reached its extreme zenith under Donald Trump, who has formally withdrawn the US from most international organizations.
Trump openly gloated, “I don’t need international law”.
The international community saw a transparent example of US rogue state status this September, when Washington voted against the entire world at the United Nations General Assembly.
The vote was 164 to 1.
The resolution, which was promoted by the African Union, called on the UN to adopt a more accurate world map in its official documents and activities — to “correct the map”, as the measure stated.
Previously, the UN had been using the Mercator projection of the world map. This is a colonial-era representation that was introduced in year 1569, by the European geographer Gerardus Mercator.
The problem with the Mercator projection is that it grossly distorts the parts of the map that are far away from the equator.
Consequently, it makes North America, Europe, and Russia much larger than they actually are.
At the same time, the Mercator projection misleadingly makes the Global South, and especially Africa, look relatively smaller.
The United Nations has now adopted the Equal Earth projection of the world map, which is much more accurate.
This resolution should not have been controversial; it is simply about accuracy, ensuring that the true size of continents is portrayed.
This is why 164 countries supported the resolution in the UN General Assembly.
Just six member states abstained, which were primarily US allies in Central and Eastern Europe: Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine.
However, the US government strongly opposed the measure.
The US representative claimed that the more accurate world map is part of a “radical ideological project”.
US government erases history
Washington’s aggressive opposition to this common-sense resolution reflects a larger ulterior motive.
The US government is adamantly opposed to decolonization, and seeks to stamp out any sign of it, no matter how small.
The Global South hopes to decolonize these international institutions, which are still heavily dominated by the West.
Adopting a map that shows the true size of the Global South is a very small step in that direction.
Nevertheless, although this measure was small and mostly symbolic (and it does not undo the extreme damage that Western countries did to the Global South through centuries of colonial exploitation), it was still too much for the US empire.
What this incident demonstrated is that it is actually the US government that is engaged in a radical ideological project.
Washington is actively pushing to erase, and rewrite, the history of Western colonial crimes.
The Donald Trump administration has removed historical information about the slaves that were held by the US “founding fathers”, such as George Washington.
The head of the Smithsonian museums was pressured to resign, as the Trump administration has demanded the removal of critical references to slavery, racism, and colonialism in any discussion of US history.
Trump himself demonized Global South nations as “shithole countries”.
US government seeks to revive colonialism
Meanwhile, the US government is openly glorifying imperialism.
On the first day of his second presidential term, 20 January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that honored the arch-imperialist former US President William McKinley, heroizing him for overseeing “an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation”.
McKinley colonized numerous foreign territories, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines. These had previously been colonies of the Spanish empire, and the US empire took them over after winning an inter-imperialist war with Madrid in 1898.
That same year, McKinley also annexed Hawai’i, in another blatant act of colonialism.
Trump hopes to do the same. He has repeatedly promised that he will physically expand the territory of the US empire.
Trump is threatening to colonize numerous parts of the western hemisphere.
In fact, just three days after the US voted against the UN resolution that called for adopting a more accurate world map, Trump posted his own extreme map on his website Truth Social, which showed an expanded US empire.
Trump depicted the United States annexing Mexico, Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and several other Caribbean countries, as well as Iceland.
This comes at a time when Trump is waging a trade war against Canada and discussing plans for an illegal military intervention in Mexico.
Trump has also repeatedly threatened to annex Greenland, while polls show that 85% of Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the US.
At the same time, the US government has adopted an explicitly colonialist strategy in Latin America.
The White House proudly calls it the “Donroe Doctrine”, and has depicted Trump as the emperor of the western hemisphere.
Trump has vowed to forcibly take over the Panama Canal, and he has boasted of exploiting Venezuela’s oil, after he invaded the South American nation in January and kidnapped its internationally recognized president, Nicolás Maduro.
The US government is also imposing a medieval-style naval blockade of Cuba, starving the Cuban people of oil, in an attempt to collapse their economy and overthrow their government.
The United States has always been imperialist (and that imperialism has been bipartisan), but Trump has taken this to a whole new, extreme level.
Washington seeks to drag the world back to the 19th century, and to revive colonialism.
This was made as clear as day this February, when Marco Rubio — the second-most powerful person in the US government, who serves simultaneously as both secretary of state and national security advisor — delivered an explicitly pro-colonialist speech at the Munich Security Conference.
Rubio heaped praise on Western colonialists, glorifying them for “settl[ing] new continents, build[ing] vast empires extending out across the globe”.
The US foreign-policy chief condemned the “godless communist revolutions and anti-colonial uprisings” that took place in the Global South in the latter half of the 20th century, and he pledged that Washington would bring back the “West’s age of dominance”.
Rubio vowed to “renew the greatest civilization in human history” and to “build a new Western century”.
When one considers this explicitly pro-colonialist diatribe in the larger context, the US government’s votes at the United Nations make much more sense.
Washington’s opposition to the UN adopting a more accurate representation of the Global South is not just about a world map; it is about the US empire’s war on decolonization and international law; it is about the US empire’s attempt to revive Western supremacy and colonialism.
When the US government accused the rest of the world of engaging in a “radical ideological project”, it was psychological projection of what Washington itself is doing.
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The situation with Trump as president worsens continually. I can't blame him entirely, though, he is only carrying out a number of policies that were already in place, only increased their nastiness exponentially. Why nobody seems to be able to stop this train wreck in motion makes me sad and angry for my country. And I hope that there will be an overdue reckoning for the harm that the government of the United States has caused, and is continuing to wreak, on both Americans and the people of the world. To say that I am outraged is an understatement. I want to see progress made towards more freedom, more justice, and more love in the world, not this coiling around hatred.