we can be pirates cause its ok, cause we're number one, etc;

Piracy and closely related practices like privateering and smuggling funneled enormous amounts of stolen or untaxed wealth into colonial North America and the early United States, helping individual merchants, planters, and port cities build fortunes and commercial infrastructures that later looked respectable.

See, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich by Kevin Phillips.

Trump is carrying on an old tradition.

Via: Global News:

The U.S. has seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, a move that sent oil prices higher and sharply escalated tensions between Washington and Caracas

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening,” said Trump, who has been pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down.

Asked what would happen with the oil, Trump said: “We keep it, I guess.”...........more........