Trump’s expansionist revival redefines America’s frontier myth

BBC analysis traces 250 years of US growth—from the 13 colonies to a continental power—driven by westward expansion, territorial purchases, and waves of immigration that reshaped identity and politics, with early regional identities foreshadowing today’s red-blue divide. As geographic expansion waned, immigration powered growth and shifted power toward the North and West, while the South pressed for expansion to sustain political clout. Now Donald Trump casts expansion as a nostalgic call to redraw borders—talking of Greenland, the Panama Canal, and possibly Canada and Venezuela—alongside mass deportations and lower immigration, framing a contemporary revival of expansionism as a test of what it means to be American.