Constructing Neo-Imperialism: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Statements on Venezuela

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has been applied to a number of social phenomena such as racism, gender, and neoliberalism; yet, it has not been conducted on neo-imperialism, although the world has witnessed a rising trend in this area. This study was undertaken to identify the preliminary characteristics of neo-imperialism. Drawing on the CDA approach within the tradition of qualitative approach, this study analyzed Trump’s speech related to the attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd, 2026. The analysis was based on the discursive strategies of positive self-representation and negative other-representation adopted from van Dijk’s analytical framework (1993) and Enfu and Baolin’s theoretical framework of neo-imperialism (2021). The data was transcribed by using Clipto.ai, generating a 9,000-word corpus for the analysis. The results showed that there was an indication of a neo-imperialistic attitude shown by Trump in his speech, characterized by the use of both positive self-representation—built on themes of military power, apparent democracy, and apparent sympathy—and negative other-representation constructed through problematization, inferiorization, blaming the victim, and marginalization. It is implicated that world communities need multinational collaboration to eradicate neo-imperialism and stand with the oppressed.