Over the past few weeks the new US president, Donald Trump, has repeatedly claimed that the United States should “take back” the Panama Canal and that it should assume control of Greenland – one way or another. He has talked of Canada becoming America’s 51st state and now he even wants to “take over” the Gaza Strip to convert it into a “Riviera” on the eastern Mediterranean.

It’s as if the US president believes that his country should be an empire. In this Trump seems to be emulating China’s Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia, leaders he has said he