President Donald Trump appears headed back to Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 9 for a weekend stay.
The world, you can bet, is watching — and on edge.
So far this term, visits that were once mostly devoted to golf, social-media posts and social gatherings at the Winter White House now have been marked with announcements of naval military buildups, attacks on Houthi and ISIS militants in Africa and rattling warnings about the imposition of tariffs.
And, on Jan. 3, the unveiling from a dining room at the Palm Beach club of the “Donroe Doctrine” with the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
“This, I think, is a step change in the wake of the attack on Venezuela (rhetoric toward) other states,” said Stuart Rollo of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia. “This is really worrying leaders.”
Rollo said it’s been clear from the get-go of the second Trump administration that the United States would follow a foreign policy far more detached from decades-long alliances as well as the protocols and norms of the post-World War II order.
He cited the imposition of global tariffs and “territorial aggrandizement language” eyeing Canada as the 51st state and the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Trump has raised eyebrows among global allies and western nations with the seizing of Maduro on Jan. 3 and subsequent announcements, such as Trump saying the Caracas regime will deliver tens of millions of barrels of oil “controlled by me” for the benefit of the “people of Venezuela and the United States.”
So did Trump’s musing during the news conference from the Tea Room at Mar-a-Lago that Cuba is “something that we will be talking about” and subsequent accusations on the president’s flight back to Washington from South Florida that Colombian President Gustavo Petro is a “sick man” while insinuating he is targeted as well.
Then there were the Jan. 5 declarations by Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, that “we live in a world governed by strength” and “nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”
The aggressive comments were followed by a letter issued by European and NATO allies reminding Washington that “Greenland belongs to its people.” The statement asserted the sanctity of “sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders” and warned that these “are universal principles, and we will not stop defending them.”
“This is the first time, even though we’ve had many warnings, that Allied states are starting to take very seriously the idea that Trump is executing an ‘America First’ policy,” Rollo said. “It’s a shift from a liberal order, a rules-based order, to an American empire, as many have called it, to an exploitative hegemony where the carrots are all gone, or they’re diminishing rapidly, even for close allies, and the sticks are what’s handy to use. And we’re going to see more of it.”
Still, ahead of his reported arrival at Mar-a-Lago on the evening of Jan. 9, the administration did move to tamp down the rhetoric.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters after a classified briefing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Jan. 7 that the administration’s objective is to purchase Greenland from Denmark.
Later that day, Trump posted on his social-media platform that he had spoken by phone with Colombia’s Petro and had invited him to the White House.
That was a marked change from the caustic rhetoric the two men had exchanged through the latter part of 2025. Petro has called the administration a “clan of pedophiles seeking to end democracy” in the South American country.
Trump, however, said that during the conversation on Jan. 7, initiated by Petro, the Colombian president explained “the situation of drugs and other disagreements” that they have had.
“I appreciated his call and tone and look forward to meeting him in the near future,” Trump wrote.
The rhetoric from the White House though has drawn opposite reactions.
Shares of petroleum-industry companies saw increases on the stock exchanges this week, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record high approaching 50,000. The BetOnline.ag posted odds on which country might be next on the U.S. hit list, with Iran, Panama, Cuba, Colombia and Mexico as the leading candidates.
A YouGov poll released Jan. 7 showed 73% of Americans opposing the taking of Greenland by force, and just 28% supporting America’s purchase of the Danish territory. A Reuters/Ipsos poll issued Jan. 5 found just a third of those polled approved of Maduro’s capture, with 72% expressing concern Americans will get far too caught up in Venezuela.
Nonetheless, the new objectives and realities of the Trump administration’s world view have become “crystal clear,” Rollo said, at least beyond U.S. borders.
Rollo said many in the Pacific Rim view the aims of the U.S. as a modernized version of 19th century “Manifest Destiny,” the concept that it was America’s right to expand its borders across the North American continent to the Pacific.
Rollo said that during the 20th century, Washington’s definition of expansion was not physical, meaning territorial, but “the frontier of global economics” with trade treaties and massive foreign investments. On top of that was military might to defend and uphold those financial interests.
The emergence of China as an economic power, Rollo said, means the U.S. has faced commercial “reversals” and is now pursuing a “return to the frontier policy” and the Monroe Doctrine of hemispheric control.
“What we’re seeing, I actually think, is a return of the frontier,” he said. “This is about hemispheric security and looking toward a longer term rivalry with China. … As its global economic dominance closes, yeah, we might be seeing a return to the physical frontier (policies) of the 19th century.”
What is clear, Rollo said, is that from as far away as Australia, what happens at Mar-a-Lago is watched.
One reason, he said, is that Australian billionaire and business magnate Georgina Rinehart is someone who visits the president’s private club on Palm Beach. Rollo said Rinehart has funded a so-far unsuccessful MAGA-like political movement in Australia.
“Mar-a-Lago is observed. Now, the nuances of whether he’s launching strikes from there may or may not be, but absolutely, it makes big news when Australian politicians go and visit Trump,” Rollo said.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com.