First it was Canada, then the Panama Canal. Now, Donald Trump wants Greenland again.
The president-elect is renewing failed calls he made during his first term for the United States to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he is picking fights even before taking office on January 20.
In a Sunday announcement naming his ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that “for purposes of national security and freedom around the world, the United States of America feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
Trump again has plans for Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the United States could retake control of the Panama Canal if something is not done to alleviate the rising shipping costs needed to use the waterway that It connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
He has also been suggesting that Canada become the 51st state of the United States and referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.”
Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, said Trump's tinkering with friendly countries dates back to an aggressive style he used during his business days.
“If you ask something unreasonable, you're more likely to get something less unreasonable,” said Farnsworth, who is also the author of the book “Presidential Communication and Character.”
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Greenland, the largest island in the world, lies between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 80% covered by a sheet of ice and is home to a large US military base. It gained autonomy from Denmark in 1979 and its head of government, Múte Bourup Egede, suggested that Trump's latest calls for American control would be as meaningless as those he made during his first term.
“Greenland is ours. “We are not for sale and we never will be,” he said in a statement. “We must not lose our years-long fight for freedom.”
Trump canceled a 2019 visit to Denmark after Copenhagen rejected his bid to buy Greenland and ultimately failed.
He also suggested Sunday that the United States is being “ripped off” in the Panama Canal.
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in its entirety, quickly and without question,” he stated.
Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong,” but Trump responded on his social media site: “We'll see about that!”
The president-elect also posted a photo of an American flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase “Welcome to the American Canal!”
The United States built the canal in the early 20th century, but ceded control to Panama on December 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.
The canal depends on reservoirs that were affected by the 2023 droughts that forced it to substantially reduce the number of daily slots for ship crossings. With fewer ships, administrators also increased the fees charged to carriers to reserve slots to use the canal.
The explosions in Greenland and Panama came after Trump recently posted that “Canadians want Canada to become the 51st state” and offered an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop overlooking the surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag.
Trudeau suggested Trump was joking about annexing his country, but the two met recently at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump's threats to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods.
“Canada is not going to be part of the United States, but Trump's comments have more to do with leveraging what he says to extract concessions from Canada by unbalancing Canada, particularly given the current precarious political environment in Canada,” Farnsworth said. . “Maybe claim a victory on trade concessions, a narrower border or other things.”
He said the situation is similar with Greenland.
“What Trump wants is a victory,” Farnsworth said. “And even if the American flag is not raised over Greenland, Europeans may be more willing to say yes to something else because of the pressure.”
–Associated Press writer Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2024 The Canadian Press