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  "description": "A Kenyan journalist argues that Donald Trump’s aggressive stance on Somalia reflects a modern neo-imperialism that lacks the cultural understanding once practiced by the historical British Empire.",
  "path": "/2026/04/11/trump-is-enough-to-make-one-african-journo-miss-the-british-empire/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-11T00:05:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.europeans.today",
  "tags": [
    "The New World",
    "World Economic Forum",
    "posted on X",
    "Why is Trump so obsessed with Somalia?",
    "How Trump's 'America First' policy affects Africa",
    "Is the US returning to an era of empire building?",
    "The British Empire: A legacy of study and brutality",
    "Trump and the end of American exceptionalism",
    "Africa is wary of the return of Donald Trump",
    "US foreign aid to Somalia critical amid turmoil",
    "Medium",
    "The White House",
    "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License"
  ],
  "textContent": "**What you need to know**\n\n\n🔹 A Kenyan journalist critiques Donald Trump’s imperialist approach to African nations.\n🔹 Trump allegedly views Somalia only as a geopolitical malfunction to bomb.\n🔹 Contrast is drawn with British colonialists who studied local languages and customs.\n🔹 Critics suggest Trump acts more like a comic movie villain than statesman.\n\n\n\n\n\nI  t was a freelance journalist in Kenya who came up with an interesting way to understand the grotesque nature of Donald Trump’s imperialist pretensions, dangerously backed up by the lethal toys and boys of the world’s most powerful army.\n\nWriting in The New World, Joseph Maina pondered Mr Trump’s apparent obsession with Somalia: _“…on the rare occasions when he talks about African affairs, Donald Trump will often refer to Somalia and when he does he tends to use a restricted vocabulary: terrorists, migrants, failed state, threat”_.\n\nHe added that _“Somalia is processed, in Washington’s imagination, as a kind of geopolitical malfunction. Like Iran, it is a place that produces bad things and needs to be bombed until it produces fewer of them.”_\n\nThis means that Somalia is not regarded as a country with a history, culture, politics, or even a people. Instead it is just seen as somewhere that can be bombed or bullied or brutalised in whatever way Trump’s America wants.\n\nFair enough.\n\nBut then the article makes a controversial but thought-provoking assertion. An older form of colonialism was not quite as unseeing of the natives, Mr Maina indicates.\n\nThe vast empire run by the British, _“for all its brutality, at least produced men who studied the places they intended to dominate,”_ he writes. _“They learned languages, recorded customs and tried to map the internal logic of the societies they were dealing with.”_\n\nThat is an interesting claim. It could be argued that Mr Trump’s ignorant brutishness is not the sum and substance of US foreign policy, as seen in nearly 70 years.\n\nSome would say that the US Agency for International Development was founded in 1971 precisely to allow for greater engagement with and understanding of countries and societies to which aid flowed, with the tagline “from the American people”.\n\nUSAID has historically been a major donor to Somalia with 2023 data showing it be roughly 10 per cent of the country’s gross national income.\n\nBut the point of US neo-imperialism is not about the money. It’s the mindset.\n\nEven France’s President Emmanuel Macron was forced to declare at the World Economic Forum in Davos that now is _“not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism”_.\n\nMr Trump’s attitude and behaviour on the global stage is so extreme and tinpot kingly that even his conspiracy-minded conservative devotee Alex Jones has called it out.\n\nAfter Mr Trump threatened to wipe out the entire Iranian civilization, Mr Jones posted on X that Mr Trump _“like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie”_.\n\nPerhaps that is the way to see Mr Trump. Not as a colonialist, but as a “comic movie”.\n\n### **GOING FURTHER**\n\n  * ######  Why is Trump so obsessed with Somalia? | THE NEW WORLD\n\n  * ######  How Trump's 'America First' policy affects Africa | BBC\n\n  * ######  Is the US returning to an era of empire building? | AL JAZEERA\n\n  * ######  The British Empire: A legacy of study and brutality | THE GUARDIAN\n\n  * ######  Trump and the end of American exceptionalism | FOREIGN AFFAIRS\n\n  * ######  Africa is wary of the return of Donald Trump | THE ECONOMIST\n\n  * ######  US foreign aid to Somalia critical amid turmoil | REUTERS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n#### **Sources:**\n\n###### ▪ This piece was first published in Medium and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 11 April 2026 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.\n\n###### ▪ **Cover:** Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n",
  "title": "Trump is enough to make one African journo miss the British empire!",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-12T00:12:56.921Z"
}