President Donald Trump’s plans for the Western Hemisphere aren’t based on aggression, but on bringing change to places like Cuba and the Panama Canal, according to Mauricio Claver-Carone, the president’s special envoy for Latin America.

“This is a non-imperialistic expansionism,” Claver-Carone said in an extensive interview reported by Politico Wednesday, during which he spoke of sending in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work on an “obsolete” Panama Canal, and the administration’s plans to get “very creative” on Cuba.

“What we’re seeing is an effort to ensure the 21st century is also an American century,” Claver-Carone said. “I look at it now as really the golden age of America and the golden age of the Americas.The envoy served during Trump’s first administration as well, in the Treasury Department and the National Security Council.

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