The Trump administration marked the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of U.S. independence with a series of statements in support of American empire. Bucking the norm of empire denial, which holds that the United States is not an empire, they have characterized the United States as an empire and called on the United States to play an imperial role in the world. Max Boot built momentum in articles such as “The Case for American Empire” and “American imperialism? In a major feat of imperial apologia, Niall Ferguson constructed a lengthy defense of American empire in his book Colossus. Indeed, the Trump administration is providing its own apologia for American empire, creating a basis for Empire First, with the president playing the leading role.