The annual gathering of the world’s elite, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday declared that this is “not the time for new imperialism or new colonialism.”
Of course, this was in reference to Donald Trump’s current plans for the United States, which has repeatedly threatened to seize the Panama Canal and has recently kidnapped the president of Venezuela.
Trump himself took to the podium in Davos on Wednesday for a typically rambling speech, in which he occasionally mused about windmills, snidely praised Macron for his “beautiful” reflective sunglasses, and declared he would not “use force” to acquire Greenland, which he unintentionally called Iceland.
Indeed, Trump’s island designs have sparked Europe’s ire, and the European Parliament has publicly condemned the statements made by the Trump administration regarding Greenland, which “refuse fundamentally international law, the UN Charter, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a NATO ally” with unwavering condemnation.
Following Macron’s speech at Davos, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that European leaders had “lined up” to protest the “new colonialism” that the French leader had denounced.
It goes without saying that the utterly insane Donald Trump should not be discouraged from conducting extortive international operations. However, it is important to point out that Europe is rarely a conversation maker when it comes to colonialism and imperialism.
Let’s start with France, which still has power over a dozen countries spread out across the globe, many of which are marketed as exotic vacation spots, including the Mayotte archipelago and the Guadeloupe islands in the Caribbean Sea.
Although these regions have officially transitioned from lowly colonial status to legitimate French Republic departments, making them a part of the European Union, France struggles to overcome the outdated imperial mindset and associated superiority complex.
When cyclone-ravaged Mayotte, France’s poorest overseas territory, residents in December 2024 criticized the ineffective government response to the disaster, Macron charmingly retorted: “If it weren’t for France, you would be in way deeper s***, 10, 000 times more.
How about some “new colonialism”?
France has a particularly appalling track record on that front, as well as the tried-and-true “old” colonialism. In the 1954-1962 conflict for Algerian independence, 1.5 million Algerians were killed.
Macron has consistently refrained from offering a formal French apology despite previously claiming that French colonization of the North African nation was a “crime against humanity” characterised by widespread torture and other brutality.
However, it’s not just France. Other European nations that are suddenly opposed to colonialism also have eminently brutal legacy systems all over the world.
Indeed, it’s difficult to find anything more than a speck of land in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or anywhere else in the world that hasn’t been the victim of past centuries of European plunder, enslavement, mass murder, and other atrocities.
King Leopold II of Belgium presided over the deaths of 10 million or so Congolese people starting in 1885 when he established the “Congo Free State” as his own personal property. Britain, the Spaniards, decimated Indigenous populations wherever it could.
Belgian King Philippe apologized publicly for the abuses that occurred during the colonial era in 2022, but he withheld an official statement of apology. According to one article about the non-apology, “villages that missed rubber collection quotas were notoriously made to provide severed hands in the place of that.”
British historian Ian Campbell estimates that Addis Ababa’s 19 to 20% of Ethiopian population was completely exterminated in just three days during the Italian military occupation of East Africa in 1937.
The list of atrocities committed in Europe is endless.
Of course, this isn’t intended to suggest that Trump should be able to plunder or commit any crimes at his own volition. Simply put, it serves as a reminder that colonialism can’t be fought against by one person. Up until recently, Greenland was a total colony of Denmark.
In terms of colonial atrocities, Europe hasn’t been sufficiently up in arms over the massive slaughter in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, choosing to pursue a path of superficial criticism and de facto complicity.
According to the Trumpian perspective, Gaza is now being administered by a so-called “Board of Peace” and presided over by – who else? The killing continues under the guise of a US-brokered ceasefire. Trump himself
Benjamin Netanyahu, the president of Israel, and genocidaire extraordinaire, will also be on the board, which undoubtedly indicates a “new colonialism” of the most sinister kind.
Unfortunately, bloody hypocrisy is not new, sadly for the rest of the world.
