President-elect Donald Trump speaks about his ambitions for buying Greenland from Denmark and retaking the Panama Canal despite a treaty.
He views Mexico as a source of unwanted migration, drugs and Chinese goods, Canada as a liberal dystopia and Greenland as a weak link. Some of his remarks are bluster. The Gulf of Mexico, he says, should be renamed the Gulf of America.
Overall, a plurality of the poll’s respondents said they were opposed to the U.S. trying to gain ownership of Greenland and control of the Panama Canal. A majority also said they were opposed to the U.S. trying to attain Canada.
There are other climate-related reasons for Mr. Trump to be interested in Canada and Greenland as they gain grain-growing land while we lose a chunk of ours to increasing temperatures, but it sounds just now as if Mr. Trump has shipping and the related matter of projecting naval power in mind.
President Trump had a “firm” phone conversation with Denmark’s prime minister last week to convey his serious intentions of acquiring Greenland, according to a report citing officials privy to the talk.
Rather than appeal to Denmark’s goodwill, President Trump’s rhetoric risks trapping the U.S. in a cycle of increasing coercion.
Trump Threatens Military Force to Acquire Panama Canal and Greenland | Firstpost America US President-elect Donald Trump has refused to rule out the use of military or economic force to seize control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Donald Trump argues that the US needs Greenland for national security, while a retaking of the Panama Canal is necessary to curb the overcharging of American ships and combat Chinese influence.
Greenland is protected by NATO’s Article 5 which invokes mutual defence in the case of any armed attack or invasion, the Finnish foreign minister has said. According to Elina Valtonen, Article 5 is extended to Greenland as an autonomous territory of Denmark,
Mr. Trump is tapping into this social and intellectual history, promising to “pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars” — even “to Mars.” But he does so in that witchy style he has perfected, which makes conventional ideas sound outlandish.