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In my latest Substack Live, I sat down with James Matthewson for a powerful conversation that began with Greenland and ended somewhere much deeper.
James is a Contributor to the BBC and Sky News and spent years working in the UK parliament as a Labour adviser. I wanted to get his insights on how Trump’s increasingly imperialistic moves are landing in Europe, but we ended up having a discussion that cut to the heart of America’s role in the world.
We talked about imperial power, the breakdown of the post-WWII order, authoritarianism abroad and at home, and what happens when the United States begins to openly abandon restraint.
What emerged was not just a foreign policy conversation, but a diagnosis of where America is headed if this worldview continues unchecked.
On the surface, President Trump’s renewed talk of “taking” Greenland sounds absurd. The idea of even potentially forcibly “taking “ Greenland from a NATO ally would have been unthinkable for a U.S. president just a decade ago.
But as our conversation unfolded, it became clear that this wasn’t a sideshow. It was a signal. Europe is taking this very seriously.
What Trump and Stephen Miller are openly articulating is an imperial view of American power. One that rejects restraint, dismisses sovereignty, and treats might as right.
This is genuinely one of my favorite Substack Live conversations I’ve ever had. I hope you watch it in full above. Below you’ll find some top-level insights from the convo, but the talk itself is really worth watching for its depth.
Europe is alarmed
One of the most important insights James shared was this: European leaders are not reacting to Trump’s Greenland rhetoric with disbelief. They’re reacting with concern.
The idea that the United States would threaten a NATO ally over territory fundamentally breaks the logic that has governed the transatlantic alliance since World War II. The assumption was always simple: borders among allies are respected. Power is constrained by law. Force is the last resort.
Once that assumption cracks, everything downstream becomes unstable.
If the U.S. is willing to coerce Denmark, what does that tell smaller allies? What does it say about security guarantees? About collective defense? Will NATO even survive?
Trust, once shaken, doesn’t return easily.
The end of the post-WWII order
For decades, the post-WWII order rested on a shared understanding: borders are not changed by force. Even great powers are bound by rules.
Trump is openly challenging that premise.
Greenland. Venezuela. Hemisphere-wide dominance. These aren’t isolated impulses, they’re part of a worldview that sees power as justification within itself.
James and I talked about how destabilizing this is not just for NATO, but for the entire global system. If America abandons restraint, it erases the moral foundation it uses to oppose Russia in Ukraine or China in Taiwan.
You can’t claim a rules-based order while acting above the rules.
“Securing our interests unapologetically.”
That contradiction becomes stark when you listen to the administration’s own words.
Stephen Miller recently said the United States will use its military to “secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere,” arguing that Donald Trump is entitled to dictate how sovereign nations in the Western Hemisphere behave.
Miller is describing an unhinged, imperialistic U.S. foreign policy where the Trump Administration inflicts its will on the world with zero regard for international law or the sovereignty of other nations.
It’s the logic that powers have historically used when they believe might makes right. And history is very clear about where that logic leads.
James put this in perspective from a European lens: this is the kind of worldview that produced world wars.
The connection to authoritarianism at home
What made this conversation especially important is that it didn’t treat foreign policy in isolation.
Trump’s willingness to discard limits abroad mirrors his behavior at home: the erosion of civil liberties, the normalization of state violence, and the demand for loyalty over law.
An imperial presidency doesn’t stop at borders.
The same mindset that justifies coercion overseas justifies repression domestically. Power without accountability always turns inward.
We also pointed out that this isn’t coming from a place of strength. It’s coming from a place of profound political weakness.
Where this leaves America
By the end of the conversation, the question wasn’t “Will Trump take Greenland?”
The question was whether Europe would tolerate it and if the American people would push back on this insanity.
Authoritarian systems don’t collapse because they overreach once. They collapse because they convince themselves that restraint is weakness.
The United States faces a choice of whether it will be a democracy that wields power with responsibility or an empire that mistakes force for legitimacy.
Americans will have a chance to guide that choice in the midterms.
The world is watching what country we decide to be, and they will move accordingly.
