1930s or 19th century: What other historical era do these Trump times resemble?

To the head of the anti-immigration strike force, Greg Bovinolikes martial displays of power. This week he appeared marching through the streets of Minneapolisfirm step, surrounded by dozens of agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICEfor its acronym in English). In front, unarmed demonstrators braving the freezing cold of the American city and protesting for the abuses of the “migra”; one of his officers shot and killed a woman in a raid in the city.

Someone started yelling at the police force: “¡Brown shirts! ¡Brown shirts!” (in English, brownshirts). He referred to the shock forces of Nazism, the Sturmabteilung or “SA” militias. Even the long military-style coat of the ICE chief It was reminiscent of the style of those old days of Germany before the Second World War.

Comparisons of the authoritarian drift of the United States with the rise of Fascism of interwar Germany They are increasingly present in press analysis, among comparative history professors and in the speeches of some American politicians. Since Trump invaded Venezuela and decapitated the regime, the new US administration has also been compared to those of the 19th century, when the American country exerted pressure against its Latin American neighbors, which it considered its sphere of influence (Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt Corollary).

What other historical period is the current one most similar to??

Any historical comparison is limping, but it serves to detect patterns and thus anticipate solutions to problems that could be to come.

“As a historian of Germany, I would suggest that the similarities are greatest between the current US Administration and post-1933 Germany,” following the rise of Adolf Hitler to power after being democratically elected, tells this newspaper Pamela Swett, Professor of History at McMaster University in Canada. “I see similarities between the first years of the Hitler dictatorship and the actions of the president of the United States over the last year. Among others, clear examples stand out as the attacks against immigrant communities within the United States, the removal of critics within the Government, the expansion of police activity and the use of state violence against American citizens, and the absolute disregard for international law, as we have seen most recently in relation to the situation in Venezuela.

There are more similarities between the ultra politics of the German National Socialists and Trump’s political messages. The xenophobia and racism They are among the most obvious features. The Republican politician has made anti-immigration his star policy. And it is not just about expelling, as he said during the campaign, immigrants who commit crimes; That has always been done, especially in the government of Democrat Barack Obama, who was called by some “deporter in chief.” The difference now is the methods used and, above all, the discourse surrounding the expulsion. Trump wants white immigrants (e.g. South Africans), but not dark-skinned.

“Why do we only get people from shitty countries? Why can’t we bring people from Norway, Sweden, just a few, from Denmark? Would you mind sending us some people? Send us nice people, can that be?” the president said in a speech. “But we always receive people from Somaliaplaces that are a disaster. Disgusting, dirty, disgusting, crime-ridden.”

In other speeches he has attacked Mexicans or Venezuelans, calling them rapists or murderers. It has imposed a racial framework on immigration policy, among other things because are MAGA bases (Make America Great Again) is made up mostly of whites who see their primacy in the country threatened.

Trump’s “appeasement”

Another classic word also returns: the ‘appeasement’ or appeasement, the diplomatic strategy of avoiding war through territorial concessions.

In 1938, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlainand his French counterpart, Édouard Daladier, accepted Hitler’s demands that Czechoslovakia cede to Germany a part of its territory known as the Sudetenland. Hitler convinced the Western Allies that this was his only territorial claim. He lied. The Nazi leader ordered the invasion of Poland a few months later, unleashing the worst war humanity has ever known.

That failed appeasement strategy is now remembered to explain the one Europe applies in the face of Trump’s demands.

The leaders of the Old Continent sealed an agreement with the American president by which tariffs on certain American products were reduced to zero in exchange for tariffs on European products being maintained at 15%. For some, it was a disgrace, a tribute, as well as an unbalanced agreement. Trump’s word was short-lived. This week he threatened again, although he later retracted it, to raise tariffs on Europe if they oppose the annexation of Greenland to the United States. He offers Denmark to buy the island. If they do not agree to hand it over the hard way, he will do it the hard way, he says. Will the enormous ice desert, home to some 50,000 people, the new ‘Sudetenland’ of the Europeanswho try to appease a belligerent leader?

Trump is not Hitler, nor does the Germany that gave rise to the Nazi party look much like today’s America. “In the years before Hitler came to power, Germany was going through a very serious economic and political crisis. The Great Depression hit hard, unemployment peaked at approximately six million people, no political party was capable of forming a stable government and there was considerable violence in the streets between radicalized paramilitary groups,” adds Swett. “These were some of the reasons why Hitler’s party was able to grow in influence, leading to Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933. But these were not the conditions of the United States in 2024. Trump was elected president after a period of economic and political stability.”

During the first year of his mandate, Trump has shown clear signs of authoritarianism and aggressive nationalism. Inside, he has taken measures to concentrate power, ignoring the courts and Congress; He has ordered the Department of Justice to investigate his political enemies, and he has threatened universities and the media, some of which have had to give in to his conditions. It has also created a federal shock force, ICE, which captures and beats people on the streets, and forcibly removes them from their homes to intern them in detention centers isolated from the rest of the world, often without any crime.

The spheres of influence of the 19th century

And what does Trump’s United States look like outside its borders? The most used analogy is the 19th century, a time of empires, spheres of influence and colonization. The president does not hide that the America of a century and a half ago is a model for him.

In the National Security Strategy of the end of 2025, an old political idea called Monroe Doctrine. The United States says it will “reaffirm and enforce the Monroe Doctrine” to “restore American primacy in the Western Hemisphere”. And he adds a “Trump corollary” with which he “will prevent competitors from outside the hemisphere from positioning forces or other threatening capabilities, or from possessing or controlling strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.” According to the document, this “Trump corollary” is a “commonsense and powerful restoration of American power and priorities”, “consistent with US security interests.”

The Monroe Doctrine was formulated in 1823, when President James Monroe claimed before the United States Congress that “America was closed to new European colonization.” Any attempt at intervention by the powers of the Old Continent in the Western Hemisphere would be seen as a threat. In exchange, Washington promised “not to interfere in the internal affairs of Europe.” Eight decades later, the Roosevelt Corollaryformulated by the president Theodore Roosevelt in 1904raised the stakes and justified any “preventive US intervention in Latin America” ​​if a country in the region fell into “chronic disorder” or failed to pay its debts. It opened the door to North American interference in South and Central America, which would dominate the entire 20th century.

“The Monroe Doctrine was intended to keep the European powers away from America. At that time, the United States had no way of enforcing it. A century later, they twisted its meaning to the point of insinuating that they ‘possessed’ the American continent. Trump is resorting to that doctrine to claim the primacy of his country, but it will not be easy to apply it, because the world has completely changed,” he tells EL PERIÓDICO Luz María Hernández-Sáenz, Professor of History at Western University in Canada. “It was not until World War II that Roosevelt sought support from Mexico, Central America, and South America.”

There are other historical metaphors that explain parts of US foreign policy. One was explained to this newspaper by Stephen Van Evera, professor emeritus of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Trump behaves towards the world like the Kaiser Wilhelm II between 1890 and 1917. He broke with the balanced policy towards neighboring countries of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and ordered a more assertive one. He promoted a policy of expansion through military means, to build a more extensive empire and expand the German sphere of influence. He shook his “iron fist” at others. The result was that a coalition of countries against Germany was created that ended up surrounding the country and defeating it in the First World War.

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