Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "China Would Lose a War with the USA" video.

@paulmurgatroyd6372 No no the US has had an empire. It's simply been of the smallest sort. Hawaii, despite now being actually core US territory in some sense, was basically annexed, Puerto Rico and the Phillipines were ceded to the US in a war (with a bit of trolling to the Filipinos), and most of the pacific islands known as "Territories" legally are also basically from that time. We also took the Panama canal for a while. So it did do a bit of empire while it was fashionable. Also in real terms the US has an informal empire on Europe right now where despite not being called it, US culture is pretty damn dominant, a majority of some of the European states speak English, and of course they're under the American defense umbrella. They're also kind of tied to our banking system having helped them out with 2008. If you're defending their land, regulating their economies, and infecting them with your culture... are they not imperial holdings? At the very least they can be considered client states.
4