Trump Is Bringing the Mandate System Back- The proposal to place Gaza under some form of externally administered “peace” authority marks more than a policy misstep; it signals a historical reversal. Under Donald Trump’s political logic, the language of governance is being dragged backward—past the postwar commitment to self-determination and into the discredited world of mandates, trusteeships, and imperial supervision. What is being revived is not peace, but the administrative imagination of empire.
This is not an aberration. Trumpism has always been hostile to the post–World War II international order, with its emphasis on law, multilateral norms, and the formal equality of states. In its place, Trump offers a transactional worldview: power decides, and those without it are managed. Gaza, in this framework, is not a people with political rights but a territory with “problems”—security problems, demographic problems, reputational problems—that require outside control. This is precisely the logic that animated the League of Nations Mandate System a century ago.
The mandate logic, revived
The mandate system was built on a paternalistic fiction: that some peoples were “not yet ready” to govern themselves and therefore required tutelage by more “advanced” powers. In practice, mandates were colonialism by another name—rule without consent, exploitation without accountability, and delay without end. The language was humanitarian; the reality was domination.
Trump’s approach to Gaza reproduces this logic almost perfectly. The idea of a “peace board” or international administration assumes that Palestinians cannot exercise sovereignty until they satisfy conditions imposed from outside. Self-determination becomes probationary. Rights become rewards for compliance. Violence is redefined so that only resistance counts, while structural domination disappears behind managerial jargon.
This is why the proposal is so dangerous. It does not merely postpone Palestinian sovereignty; it reframes sovereignty itself as conditional. Gaza is treated not as part of a colonised people entitled to liberation, but as a malfunctioning zone that must be stabilised before politics can resume. History tells us how this ends: politics never resumes.
From occupation to management
Trump’s contribution is not subtlety but bluntness. Where previous administrations cloaked imperial arrangements in the language of process and diplomacy, Trump dispenses with pretence. He openly favours control over consent, force over law, and outcomes over principles. In Gaza, this means shifting from the visible violence of occupation to the quieter violence of administration.
An externally imposed governing authority would not end domination; it would launder it. Responsibility would be dispersed among international actors, while real power—over borders, airspace, resources, and movement—would remain unchanged. This is neo-colonialism in its most efficient form: rule without rulers, control without accountability.
Under such a system, Palestinian political demands are depoliticised. Liberation becomes a “governance issue.” Resistance becomes a “security risk.” Survival becomes a metric of success. The population is kept alive, but only just—fed, monitored, audited, and restrained. This is not peace; it is containment.
Trumpism and racialised sovereignty
The revival of mandate thinking is inseparable from race. Trump’s worldview is organised around hierarchies of civilisation and threat. Some states are legitimate by default; others must earn legitimacy through obedience. Some populations are trusted with weapons, borders, and sovereignty; others are not.
Gaza, in this racialised imagination, is perpetually suspect. Its people are treated as a collective risk rather than a political community. This justifies endless supervision. Airports and ports become “too dangerous.” Elections become “premature.” Sovereignty becomes “irresponsible.” The criteria for readiness are never met because they are never meant to be.
This is Orientalism updated for the security age: the non-Western subject as incapable of self-rule, requiring indefinite management by external experts. Trump does not invent this logic, but he articulates it without embarrassment—and, in doing so, normalises it.
Humanitarianism as discipline
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of a mandate-style arrangement is its humanitarian branding. Aid, reconstruction, and basic services are presented as gifts rather than rights. Gratitude is expected; dissent is pathologised. A population struggling to survive is told that political demands are distractions from recovery.
This is governance through dependency. When food, electricity, medical care, and reconstruction are controlled by external authorities, resistance becomes a risk to survival itself. The population is reduced to what political theorists have called “bare life”—kept alive but stripped of political agency.
Trump’s version of this is brutally clear: humanitarian provision is acceptable so long as it does not challenge the underlying power structure. Gaza may be rebuilt, but only as a managed enclosure—secure, pacified, and politically inert.
The collapse of the postwar promise
What makes this moment so stark is that it represents a rejection of the lessons of the 20th century. The horrors of imperial rule led to a global consensus, however imperfect, that peoples have an inalienable right to self-determination. Trusteeship was supposed to be a transitional relic, not a reusable tool.
By reintroducing mandate-style governance, Trump is testing whether that consensus still holds. If Gaza can be placed under international supervision today, then the principle of sovereign equality has already collapsed. Any population deemed troublesome, radical, or disposable can be subjected to the same treatment tomorrow.
This is why Gaza is not an exception; it is a precedent.
The decolonial refusal
Against this regression, a decolonial position is uncompromising. It rejects the idea that freedom can be administered, that sovereignty can be postponed, or that peace can be imposed by those who benefit from domination. It insists that Palestinians do not need guardians, trustees, or boards. They need an end to occupation, reparations for destruction, and the material conditions to exercise political agency.
Trump’s vision offers the opposite: management instead of liberation, supervision instead of sovereignty, and stability instead of justice. It is the mandate system stripped of its euphemisms and sold as realism.
History is clear about where such projects lead. The question is whether the present is willing to learn from it—or whether, under Trump’s blunt imperial revival, the world is prepared to repeat it.
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