Kevin McCarthy’s Pants on Fire claim that U.S. never asked for land after wars

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently shared footage of himself dressed in formal attire, telling an audience that the United States has never sought land after winning wars.

McCarthy uploaded his posts on X and YouTube on Nov. 26, about a month after he made his remarks at the Oxford Union, the 200-year-old debating society at the University of Oxford in England. The debate, which addressed the value of U.S. intervention around the world, also featured Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., and Republican pollster Frank Luntz.

McCarthy said at the Oct. 28 event, "In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards, except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for."

His post on X, formerly Twitter, drew criticism from commenters, who said McCarthy was ignoring multiple examples in which the United States had taken control of new territory following warfare. The post drew a community note that concurred with the critics’ argument. (Community notes, written by X users, are designed to provide additional context to claims made on the platform.)

Multiple historians told PolitiFact that McCarthy’s comment was historically inaccurate.

"You could quibble in some cases over whether we ‘asked’ for land and whether ‘ceding’ or ‘annexing’ is the same as taking," said Lance Janda, a military historian at Cameron University. "But if the question is whether McCarthy was incorrect, it’s easy: He is."

An email inquiry to McCarthy’s press staff was not returned.

The community note on X cited three examples, and historians told PolitiFact that each offered a valid counterpoint to McCarthy’s assertion:

• United States-Mexico war, 1848: Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded 55% of its territory, including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming.

• Spanish-American War, 1898: Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain relinquished claims on Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States. Guam and Puerto Rico remain U.S. territories; the Philippines won independence in 1946.

• Second Samoan Civil War, 1899: Under the Tripartite Convention of 1899, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States divided up the Samoan island chain in the Pacific Ocean. The portion the U.S. took is now a U.S. territory, American Samoa.

Historians offered other examples. 

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• Wars against Native Americans: Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the U.S. government continually pushed Native Americans off their land and allowed settlement by white people in the newly vacated territory. This push included many military conflicts, including the Seminole wars, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The Battle of Paceo, Manila, during the Philippine War, Feb, 4-5, 1899. (Library of Congress; public domain)

• The Philippines: The fighting did not end after the U.S. defeated Spain in 1898. After that war, members of a Filipino independence movement shifted from fighting Spain to fighting the United States.

"It was a brutal affair that the United States won," said Joseph McCallus, an English professor at Columbus State University who has authored several books on the Philippines, including "Forgotten Under a Tropical Sun: War Stories by American Veterans in the Philippines, 1898-1913."

Officially, this second war lasted from 1899 to 1902, he said, but Filipino guerrillas fought on for several years afterward. "With the Filipino independence forces defeated, the United States took control of the entire Philippine archipelago," McCallus said. "In no uncertain terms, it was an unadulterated land grab. Its purpose was to position the United States in the Pacific."

• Panama Canal Zone: In 1903, following years of failed attempts to secure a path for a canal across Central America, President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched U.S. warships to secure independence for Panama from Colombia.

The newly declared nation negotiated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, providing the United States with a 10-mile wide strip for the canal. In exchange, Panama received a U.S. guarantee of its independence, a $10 million payment and a $250,000 annuity.

The U.S. ceded control of the Canal Zone in 1979, which ceased to exist in October of that year, according to the State Department. Control of the Panama Canal itself was given to Panama in 1999.

U.S. Marines stationed on Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, after World War II (National Archives; public domain)

• Trust Territory of the Pacific. Hundreds of islands controlled by Japan passed to the U.S. following World War II as a U.S. trusteeship. After increasing sentiment in the islands for greater independence, the United Nations dissolved the arrangement in 1990.

Today, the former trust territory consists of one U.S. territory (the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) and three entities that are self-governing but that have granted the U.S. authority over defense (the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau).

Since World War II, the U.S. "hasn’t been as acquisitive," said David Silbey, a Cornell University historian and co-author of "The Other Face of Battle: America's Forgotten Wars and the Experience of Combat." "But that comes after a long history of land conquests."

McCarthy said, "In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards, except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for."

This claim is undercut by two centuries of U.S. history, including the land gains following U.S. wars against Mexico, Spain, Filipino rebels, Japan and Native American tribes. 

We rate the statement Pants on Fire!