South Korean protesters march during a rally against the US attacks on Iran in Seoul, South Korea, on March 28, 2026. Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

Weeks have passed since the US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran on February 28. The US government, although it had told US media on March 11 that the military operation would end "soon," later announced air raids on multiple Iranian targets, including its oil hub Kharg Island, reported media outlets including Axios and Al Jazeera.

Be it military strikes on Iran, raids in Venezuela, a covetous gaze cast upon Greenland or the threat of punitive tariffs against "allies," the conduct associated with the current US government has pushed the notion of "predatory hegemony" to the forefront of international discourse and academic discussions. What exactly does "predatory hegemony" mean? How has this path come to be, as US university scholar Stephen Walt contended in a February article in Foreign Affairs, a "grand strategy" of Trump's second presidential term? Under this approach, what forms of predation has the US carried out across the globe? And what damage has "predatory hegemony" already inflicted - and continues to inflict - on world peace, the international order and even the US itself?

To answer these questions, the Global Times is launching a series of articles to probe and unpack the US' "predatory hegemony." This is the second installment.

It increasingly looks as if the world is being - unfortunately - pulled by the US into deeper turmoil and greater danger. As the US-Israel-Iran conflict entered its second month, the smoke has yet to fully clear. The Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global energy shipments, is seeing disrupted shipping and continued volatility in oil prices. 

"I think of the US under Donald Trump as a predatory hegemon," commented Stephen Walt, a Robert and Renee Belfer professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, in an interview by the Economic Times published on January 22. Since the Trump administration took office, people have found that the US' map of predation has spread nearly worldwide, from the fires of the Middle East and Latin America, to the tariff sticks swung even at its allies.

Under this predatory-hegemony strategy, what has the US been and continues to be plundering? And what are the principal methods it is using? 

Military threat

"Happy World War III to all who celebrate."

On the February 28 episode of Saturday Night Live, a US late-night sketch show, cast member James Austin Johnson declared, in his recurring role as President Trump, The New York Times reported. Earlier that day, the US and Israel had carried out military strikes against Iran. 

Military force is probably one of the most direct and brutal instruments the US uses to seize other countries' resources. In recent months, the international community has watched the US train its guns on some resource-rich regions across the globe, brazenly exposing its appetite for oil, minerals and strategic waterways.

War-torn Iran is a case in point. The Hill quoted the US president on March 24 as claiming that Tehran had given the US a "present" related to oil and gas as the countries looked toward a potential ceasefire, adding, "it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money." And days earlier, the US president had warned that if Iran or anyone else interferes with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he will reconsider his decision not to wipe it out, reported The Associated Press on March 14.

"The US and Israel say their escalating military assault on Iran is about nuclear proliferation, deterrence and regional security. But recent developments suggest another, older logic at work," read an article by Al Jazeera on March 18. "The deeper objective is not simply weakening Iran or forcing regime change. It is safeguarding the mobility of oil - the lifeblood of the global capitalist economy." 

In Latin America, at the start of the year, the US had turned its sights on oil-rich Venezuela. In January, US forces mounted a raid on Venezuela and forcibly seized President Nicolas Maduro. The US president then claimed that Venezuela would turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the US, to be sold at market value and with the proceeds controlled by the US, reported CNN on January 6. 

Allies, too, have not escaped the threat of the current US government's resource grabs, such as its verbal blackmail backed by the implicit or explicit threat of force in its intention to buy Greenland. 

As CNN reported on January 21, when asked about taking Greenland by force, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "utilizing the US Military is always an option at the commander in chief's disposal." 

Jennifer Spence, director of the Arctic Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, pointed out that Greenland's strategic shipping location and rare earths deposits were key factors drawing Trump's attention. "His logic is that there's a national security imperative," the BBC quoted Spence as saying on January 23. "My belief is that this is much more economically driven."

The pattern is similar with Canada: Trump has openly hinted a desire for Canadian territory and other resources. In early March, he quipped about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney becoming the "future Governor of Canada," reviving an insult previously hurled at his predecessor Justin Trudeau over the president's push for  the US' northern neighbor to become the 51st state, reported The Hill on March 10. 

"Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of using military action, against both Greenland and Canada," reported US media outlet The Conversation on January 21. 

Zhang Jiadong, professor at the Center for American Studies, Fudan University, told the Global Times that it is clear from the Cold War's hypocritical cloak of "promoting democracy" to today's brazen pursuit of resources, military force and the threat of force are central instruments of the US' "predatory hegemony" - whether directed at adversaries or allies.

Economic plunder

An aerial view shows people taking part in a demonstration to protest against the US' plans to take Greenland, on January 17, 2026, in Nuuk, Greenland. Photo: VCG

"These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them," US Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom called on the Trump administration to issue tariff refund checks to US families and businesses, according to a report by Reuters on February 20.

The US plunders both its "adversaries" and its "allies" alike, which experts see as a hallmark of "predatory hegemony." As Zuo Xiying, a professor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China, observes in his December 2025 essay, "allies are the most valuable and easiest targets for American plunder."

In practice, Trump's second term has turned the tariff stick into a primary instrument of economic coercion. The Trump administration imposed, or threatened to impose, sweeping tariffs on close allies and partners alike. 

The US government, in response to European resistance to the push to gain control over Greenland, had threatened to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK starting February 1, rising to 25 percent on June 1 if they continued to resist. In response to this threat, finance ministers of Germany and France, gatekeepers to the bloc's biggest economies, have publicly come out and said they would not allow the economic blackmail to be used to force them into complying with US demands, according to Euronews. The US tariff threat later walked back on January 21 under pressure, BBC reported.

Beyond tariffs, the Trump administration has intensified the protection racket - demanding direct payments for the "security umbrella" the US has long provided. The US president has said NATO allies should boost investment in defense to 5 percent of GDP, up from the current target of 2 percent, Al Jazeera reported. Similar demands were also reportedly placed on South Korea and Japan, where the White House pressed for higher host-nation support payments for US troops.

France has led calls for Europe to build its "strategic autonomy," and support for its stance has grown since the Trump administration warned last year that its security priorities lie elsewhere and that the Europeans would have to fend for themselves, the AP reported. 

Walt, writing in Foreign Affairs in February, captured the essence of this strategy: the "predatory hegemon" views all relationships as zero-sum and seeks to extract the greatest possible benefits from each one.

"A predatory hegemon is as likely to exploit its partners as it is to take advantage of a rival. It may use embargoes, financial sanctions, beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies, currency manipulation, and other instruments of economic pressure to force others to accept terms of trade that favor the hegemon's economy or to adjust their behavior on noneconomic issues of interest. It will link the provision of military protection to its economic demands and expect alliance partners to support its broader foreign policy initiatives," Walt wrote in his article.

Inherent predation 

People react during a government-organized event to watch Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores appear in a New York court on a screen in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 26, 2026. Photo: VCG

For Sun Yanfeng, director of Latin American research at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, the "predatory hegemon" is a typical character of the "New Monroe Doctrine of the Trump administration."

According to Sun, under the guise of "Make America Great Again," the Trump administration has interpreted "America First" as blatant power politics, subverting rules, coercing allies and plundering resources - taking the world back to an era of the law of the jungle. This lays bare the fact that the US is inherently predatory toward the world. The exclusive logic of geopolitical expansion underlying the Monroe Doctrine has remained unchanged for more than 200 years. 

If the "law of the jungle" makes a comeback, countries directly targeted such as Venezuela and Iran, as well as the relatively weaker Global South nations and certain Western countries, could all become victims of predatory behavior, drastically exacerbating the global security crisis, Sun said. 

"Even longstanding allies are coming to terms with the reality that the US has become a predatory hegemon: It no longer invests in the world order but is intent on upending it, exploiting coercive power to its own benefit and others' detriment," Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, wrote in a commentary published in January on the Politico website. 

 The war is bringing endless suffering to the people involved. According to the United Nations, 1,500 people, including 300 children, had been killed in Iran as of March 25. 

In addition, over 1 million people - including nearly 370,000 children - have been forced to flee. The UN estimated that 1,300,000 people will be directly affected by the conflict if current trends continue.

The impact of the war on the economy has also reached nearly every corner of the world. Oil prices have soared and stock markets have wobbled as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz - through which about 20 percent of global oil passes - has harply reduced, according to BBC. The World Food Programme estimated that 45 million people could face extreme levels of hunger if the war continues and the price of fuel continues to climb.

Where will the "predatory hegemon" of the US take the world to? Probably no one could exactly answer this question at present. The US president, as Patrick said in his article, "has generated a geopolitical earthquake, but the most powerful tremors may be yet to come."