Reflections on President Trump: "America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War"

 

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One always ought to worry when a merchant  attempts the role of the official/bureaucrat; or when the warrior seeks to play the role of merchant; or when the Bureaucrat/official attempts the governance of warriors. None of them ever seem to get it right, if only because the cognitive lens of each are distinct enough to make rationalizing the world difficult for a merchant playing at war, a warrior playing at business or bureaucrats and merchants attempting to play the role of the other. The imaginaries of the merchant, warrior and bureaucrat are based on distinct ways of identifying and assessing  the things that are significant and the way they might be valued against their own sense of the appropriate ordering of things. ways of seeing the world. (The "Merchant" (商), the "Bureaucrat" (士) and the "Tariff War"--The Cognitive Cages of the New Apex Post-Global and the Condition of the U.S. and China in their Folie à Deux). When these distinct cognitive cages are ordered within hierarchies of values they might well produce useful synergy--assuming a dominant imaginary to rule them all.  That is so as long as the inherent tensions among them can be managed successfully. Merchants and warriors sometimes find it hard to get along (example here) etc., precisely because they cannot see the world and identify the significance of actions, issues, etc. in the same way. The contradictions become more acute, and significant enough to threaten the stability of a political-economic model, when ruling/rationalizing archetypes, taking for example, the forms described here, attempt to wield the cognitive referents of another. It works sometimes: the warrior merchant, the yeoman official; but contemporary functional differentiation of governance spaces suggest that this effort is more difficult to sustain in the current environment.    

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Such is the state of the world that our global leaders, all true archetypes of the old divisions among merchants, warriors, officials, and peasants, appear ever more desperately to act "out of character."   This is especially relevant when a merchant empire (or rather a post-global empire now run by merchants types who sometimes style themselves bureaucrats or warriors, though perhaps their foundations resonate more with the yeomanry from which they emerged) celebrates its generative moment, or better (since that generative moment occurred decades before in the sort of trade based diplomacy that opened Asian markets in the wake of European territorial imperial ambitions of an ancien regime sort) when it celebrates the idea that a merchant empire or a post-global empire of merchants can actually presume the role of bureaucratic empire while retaining its fundamental transactional merchant character. Mind you, there is neither anything wrong or special about this--the thirst and capacity for empire (though often the will for it doe snot survive three generations as Ibn Khaldun reminded his Arab readers in the 14 century). But what is dangerous--for those who lead merchant empires is the folly of actually believing that merchant empires might function, and function effectively in the world, as if they were the manifestation of bureaucratic or warrior empires, or worse, the fantasy of a yeoman empire. That, in a sense was what appeared to be the message of the 2nd leadership period of the Trump administration in early 2025 (considered in The Borderlands of America First--Marco Rubio: "100 Days of an America First State Department" and the Structures of the America First Belt & Road Initiative). Yet temptation runs deep, and flirtation across cognitive spaces may be irresistible in ways that may ultimately undo the best laid plans of merchant empire. Or it may be that even merchant empires require a base, and we are ony now being treated to a description of its breadth. 

It was with this in mind that one might better appreciate a recent Presidential Message:  America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War, the text of which follows below in full. The Presidential Message was quite inspiring. The Presidential message focused on the relations between the United States and Spain, the relationships between which was marked by a short war and the Spanish cession of a number of its colonies--some transferred to the control of the United States and others--principally Cuba, granted independence from Spain. For the President, those changing relations between the merchant empire of the United States and the old colonial Empire of Spain incarnated the best features of the co-called Monroe Doctrine that emerged from an 1823 address by President Monroe opposing further European colonization of the Americas but also protective of U.S. national territorial aspirations in the Northern Hemisphere and then morphed into a more protean concept of American protective influence in the Western Hemisphere.The Monroe Doctrine has had its share of advocates and detractors, architects and those devoted to its demolition. That is a matter of politics and the values in which it is sometimes encased, or at least encased in some sort of vision that can be articulated in ideology-principle. In this case, and with President Trump's well known concern about the state of Europe and its relationship with the U.S., its emphasis in the Presidential Message also suggests some sort of time travel backwards to the generative period of American antebellum development  projected forward to contemporary times. President Trump is not the only leader time traveling these days, at least discursively; there are others who are well known but not worth taking the time to mention for their own pathos, or better bathos. But having traveled back and forth into the 19th century, the President then offers sometimes of value that might be extracted from those perambulations: "Today, we honor the unwavering courage, conviction, and sacrifice of every hero of liberty who fearlessly confronted forces of tyranny to defend our honor, our sovereignty, and our birthright of freedom" (America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War). . . in Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and elsewhere. Not that this is bad or good, but that it is, and being is the essence of both politics and its narrative ideologies. 

It was kind, though, of President Trump to recall that tragic monarch, Alfonso XIII, and the even more tragic circumstances that saw the U.S. battleship Maine hobbled in old Havana Harbor, with  large loss of life, producing the sort of national  response--aided by  the precursor of today's social media managerial tools--that made war palatable to the American laboring castes, and potentially beneficial to American merchants, warriors and the newly emerging class of professional vanguardists in the growing bureaucracies that would later come to dominate political life. The loss of life on the Maine, which had been sent to Havana to protect American economic interests that were threatened during the course of the Wars of Cuban Independence that had started far earlier in the 19th century and sputtered on sporadically for the greater art of that century, " propelled the United States toward a momentous struggle for justice and ignited our Nation’s righteous determination to defend our interests and maintain our dominance in the Western Hemisphere."  (

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America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War). A merchant might have said that, after decades of sitting on the sidelines the intervention of the projection of the United States into Cuba to protect its interests made inevitable an intervention against the Spanish colonial administration for Cuban independence. Viewed in that way one might have seen in the Maine tragedy the necessary predicate for an America First style action to protect U.S. interests which in that case tilted against a competing (and increasing obsolete form of) empire and (at last for Cuban nationalists) in favor of independence form Spain. But for the nascent warrior and bureaucrat castes in the United States a distinctive narrative of the events emerged, one which the President (or his writers) nicely captured:  

The war swiftly unfolded as American troops and sailors advanced with decisive strength, securing victories from Cuba to the Philippines. At the Battle of Manila Bay, United States forces destroyed the entire royal Spanish fleet within mere hours. Additional fighting in Cuba was backed by Theodore Roosevelt’s legendary regiment of “Rough Riders,” a volunteer cavalry made up of cowboys, miners, and college athletes, who embodied the full measure of American strength, resilience, and grit. These triumphant victories across land and sea brought the Spanish Empire to its breaking point and solidified the United States of America as the greatest military force in the world.America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War).

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That is the kind of narrative that sustained generations. And it is inspiring, fashioning a view of patriotic projection that does not appear to end at the territorial borders of the United States (something that  august elements of the Trump Administration  with deep roots in the American yeomanry might have been more sensitive to). And it reflects a way of looking at the world that fit nicely into the development of U.S. elite vanguardist tastes from the progressive movement on. Yet it effectively marginalized the Merchant approach to American policy. "Merchants and bureaucrats do not speak the same language; they do not have the same concerns, they do not share the same loyalties either to structures or operations, they approach challenges form opposite sides--one from principle and the other from action.  One builds by doing and then considers what has been built, the other conceives of the building and then conforms activities to those that advance that vision." (The "Merchant" (商), the "Bureaucrat" (士) and the "Tariff War"--The Cognitive Cages of the New Apex Post-Global and the Condition of the U.S. and China in their Folie à Deux. This cognitive cage of the merchant leadership vanguard, one would have presumed, had been revived in contemporary form by the current Administration and its America First initiative--one that mirrored the official/bureaucrat version that might be said to have taken the form of the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative. The merchant lens understands everything through a transactional lens, giving definition to the constitution and management of merchant empires in which territories (physical and virtual) are spaces in which transactions can be advantageously realized; the warrior, and warrior empire through coercive control of territory and its pacification, in which overlordship can be advantageously achieved (and perhaps maintained); and the official/bureaucrat through the territories of institutional control, these empires of institutions see the world as territories (physical and virtual) in managerial terms which may be brought to a higher stage of development through values based shepherding.  

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But perhaps not. Nothing exists in pristine form. Each of these ruling styles needs the others; the issue then is not exclusivity by a leading means of organizing and rationalizing the world to make it possible to identity, assess and act in ways that can be measured against a unifying set of objectives and values. None of this is a criticism of U.S. against Spain--merely a suggestion that the analytical lens makes all the difference in the world in understanding its signification then, and what it teaches the current generations of merchant leaders for recognizing and staying true to the cognitive lenses through which the world is rationalized and U.S. interests understood and realized. 

Perhaps what the Presidential Message was meant to convey, through this analytical lens, way that Cuban independence from Spain was in some respects a brilliant example of the power of merchant thinking projected outward for inward reward with collateral benefits to the population whose interests aligned with those of the merchant empire (the classical win-win strategies of the merchant led America First Initiative and the Bureaucrat/official centered Belt & Road Initiative). Even as independence from Spain was achieved, through the intervention of the U.S. (and approval of another old Empire, the British one which had its own geopolitical reasons for the silence/approval), American merchants created a Cuban sovereignty that was dependent on American forbearance. The Platt Amendment, which also follows below, suggested a much more acutely merchant approach--one that was less interested in the bureaucrats more ancient desire for territory and more focused not on control per se but on control of the circumstances within which transactions and economic relations on a favorable basis could be managed and augmented. 

Platt was a U.S. senator from 1879 to 1905 and influenced the decision to annex Hawaii and occupy the Philippines. As chair of the Senate Committee with Relations on Cuba, he sponsored the amendment as a rider attached to the Army Appropriations Bill of 1901. Cubans reluctantly included the amendment, which virtually made Cuba a U.S. protectorate, in their constitution. The Platt Amendment was also incorporated in a permanent treaty between the United States and Cuba. * * * The Platt Amendment supplied the terms under which the United States intervened in Cuban affairs in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920. By 1934, rising Cuban nationalism and widespread criticism of the Platt Amendment resulted in its repeal as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America. (Platt Amendment 1903)

Politics and its shifting from a merchant to a bureaucratic/vanguardist elite between the end of the 19th and the middle of the 20th century is reflected in this history. None of this is either good or bad, empire has been undergoing a tremendous transformation in the last several decades and what had once morphed into a vanguardist loosely cobbled together empire of expertise has again broken up into empires of management of productive forces but now in quite distinct ways.  The Trump Administration, robustly embedded in the cognitive cages of the merchant and merchant empire, appears, however, to also appears tempted to avoid detachment from either a warrior or bureaucrat caste approach to cobbling together and managing empire. Perhaps that is inevitable; but which comes first? and if the merchant lens orders the others, then how does that "firstness" of the merchant affect its instrumentalization of the others? That remains unclear here. Still, one is reminded that perhaps only theologians and academics hold to conceptual purity, and pragmatism may require something messier. One sees this in the Presidential Message; , But one also sees it in the construction of a Chinese empire--in the former case the merchant must deploy but control the warrior caste; in the later the bureaucrat/official must develop but also control its own warrior case; not the caste themselves but the cognitive frameworks from out of which they rationalize the world. But the danger is that pragmatics may overcome the generative cognitive approach that holds a system, including a system of empire together. That contradiction marks the discourse of the end of the Presidential Message:

On this day 127 years ago, the Treaty of Paris formally ended the conflict . . . —a pivotal moment that marked not only the conclusion of the war but the dawn of America’s role as a military superpower unlike anything the world had ever seen. Today, we recognize the territories and partnerships forged by the Treaty of Paris, where the full force of American freedom has taken root. Above all, we renew our commitment to a simple truth: Peace is maintained through strength. My Administration is proudly upholding this America First vision through our negotiations of historic peace deals in regions marked by decades of conflict—proving to nations around the world that we can turn the page on the days of endless wars and usher in a future defined by everlasting peace. (America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War).

It is also a warning to those in whose hands the development of the American "vision" is entrusted One can try but might find it challenging to have it all ways. Peace through strength requires strength for peace. And strength is not the product of accommodation with competing Empire--a Spanish one in the 19th century and others in the 21st. Peace, for the merchant, is not an absence of war but a space within which transactions  are possible that produce win-win use of the productive forces controlled by a community of transaction makers. Peace for the merchant, in the 21st century, requires not just strength but a steady protection against the bureaucrat and the warrior states that are also the key elements in shaping a transactional platform. Therein lies the great contradiction for the American merchant--a contradiction that viewed through the transactional lens of the merchant has produced a certain amount of inconsistency (though that too may be the essence of merchant governance): "As we commemorate this anniversary of our victory in the Spanish-American War, we stand united in our unwavering commitment to peace, military strength, and the enduring principles that define the American spirit." (America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War).

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Where this leads, no one knows yet. But the signalling is confusing--and perhaps that is the greatest mark of the merchant empire as long as one is content with the foundational ordering premise that the only steady state is the transaction itself.  For Cubans and and Venezuelans the revived and repurposed Monroe Doctrine provides peace through dependence. The Platt Amendment is revived in cultural form even as its formal legal constitution recedes more forcefully into history. But for Ukrainians reading this, the suggestion is clear--the 1990s did not bring sovereign independence, it brought only independence form the Soviet Union. But that left open the question of dependence--they have rejected a closer union with the reconstituted remnant of the Soviet Empire; Europe remains unwilling or unable; perhaps what might remain is a Platt Amendment for Ukraine through which the U.S. can protect its economic interest in Ukraine and establish the borders from which a  ore fruitful relationship might be undertaken with what remains of the powers to the east and the West of Ukraine.  All that is required are the discursive tropes necessary to make these realities palatable. In that respect, at least, the Chinese are a generation ahead of the Americans. And the American are still attempting to overcome the contradictions of their own cognitive framework in a conversation that is over a century old.  It is in this spirit that, indeed, all patriots can join in the commemoration of the American victory against the Spanish Empire at the end of the 19th century, and in reflecting on the critical relevance of that victory against obsolete empire in forging the merchant, bureaucratic and warrior empires that are now again emerging from out of the detritus of that even greater experiment on convergence that lasted  for the briefest of moments.  

For the people of the Western Hemisphere, at least, the commemoration reminds all  that through the lens of merchant empire, transactions between empires are a central element in ordering the spaces necessary to advance the values and objectives of each. Where those values differ--between an American merchant Empire and a Spanish colonial empire, the contradictions may be resolved by force between them when an accommodation becomes impossible. The objects of all this conflict and contradiction--spaces that colonial empire "sees" as territory to be controlled and exploited; and merchant empire "sees" as the locus of the exploitation of means of production and the cultivation of consumption (production/consumption platforms)--are conseqeuntial rather than driving forces in battles  over that space's utilization. Discourse is an essential lubricant in those conflicts and their call to "higher values" are in turn a function of the lens through which these spaces are understood. American values, then, like those of Spanish colonialism before them (and the cornucopias of other values in the contemporary marketplace of ideas) become embedded and understood with a reference to the ordering lens through which those values emerge and are applied--to enhance the value and operation of transactional spaces for merchant empires in accordance with the fundamental values of markets transactional environment in the service of which they are applied ("This tragedy propelled the United States toward a momentous struggle for justice and ignited our Nation’s righteous determination to defend our interests and maintain our dominance in the Western Hemisphere." Presidential message). But there is the problem. It is hard ti square that conceptual lens with the discursive tropes of warrior empire. A warrior empire assumes a constant state of war--to defend and expand (the contemporary Russian model, perhaps, and others). Peace is a consequences of domination; for the merchant peace is a predicate to transaction (there is a caveat for merchant cultures subordinated to and surviving on the economies of warfare). "As we commemorate this anniversary of our victory in the Spanish-American War, we stand united in our unwavering commitment to peace, military strength, and the enduring principles that define the American spirit" (Presidential Message) it may be worth a moment to consider the relationship among the three and their variability as a function of the lens used to signify and apply them. It is in that effort that the shape of America First may yet emerge more clearly, unless it too is merely a transaction within a larger market space. 

  

 

America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of our Victory in the Spanish-American War

The White House

December 10, 2025

On December 10, 1898, the United States signed a historic peace treaty to end the momentous Spanish-American War.  The treaty reaffirmed the “Monroe Doctrine” by ending the age-old European foothold in the Western Hemisphere and signaled to the entire world that America was emerging as a major superpower not to be underestimated.  Today, we honor the unwavering courage, conviction, and sacrifice of every hero of liberty who fearlessly confronted forces of tyranny to defend our honor, our sovereignty, and our birthright of freedom.

As Cuba’s fight for independence escalated under King Alfonso XIII’s rule—leading to violent unrest that endangered American lives—the United States deployed the battleship USS MAINE to Havana, the capital of Cuba.  On February 15, 1898, a devastating explosion sank the ship, claiming the lives of more than 260 Americans.  This tragedy propelled the United States toward a momentous struggle for justice and ignited our Nation’s righteous determination to defend our interests and maintain our dominance in the Western Hemisphere.  

The war swiftly unfolded as American troops and sailors advanced with decisive strength, securing victories from Cuba to the Philippines.  At the Battle of Manila Bay, United States forces destroyed the entire royal Spanish fleet within mere hours.  Additional fighting in Cuba was backed by Theodore Roosevelt’s legendary regiment of “Rough Riders,” a volunteer cavalry made up of cowboys, miners, and college athletes, who embodied the full measure of American strength, resilience, and grit.  These triumphant victories across land and sea brought the Spanish Empire to its breaking point and solidified the United States of America as the greatest military force in the world.

On this day 127 years ago, the Treaty of Paris formally ended the conflict and Spain relinquished its claim to Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States—a pivotal moment that marked not only the conclusion of the war but the dawn of America’s role as a military superpower unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Today, we recognize the territories and partnerships forged by the Treaty of Paris, where the full force of American freedom has taken root.  Above all, we renew our commitment to a simple truth:  Peace is maintained through strength.  My Administration is proudly upholding this America First vision through our negotiations of historic peace deals in regions marked by decades of conflict—proving to nations around the world that we can turn the page on the days of endless wars and usher in a future defined by everlasting peace.

As we commemorate this anniversary of our victory in the Spanish-American War, we stand united in our unwavering commitment to peace, military strength, and the enduring principles that define the American spirit.

*       *       * 

PLATT AMENDMENT Transcript

Whereas the Congress of the United States of America, by an Act approved March 2, 1901, provided as follows:

Provided further, That in fulfillment of the declaration contained in the joint resolution approved April twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, entitled "For the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba, and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect," the President is hereby authorized to "leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people" so soon as a government shall have been established in said island under a constitution which, either as a part thereof or in an ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows:

"I.-That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgement in or control over any portion of said island."

"II. That said government shall not assume or contract any public debt, to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of government shall be inadequate."

"III. That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba."

"IV. That all Acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected."

"V. That the government of Cuba will execute, and as far as necessary extend, the plans already devised or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein."

"VI. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty."

"VII. That to enable the United States to maintain the independence

of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the President of the United States."

"VIII. That by way of further assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States."