Epoch Times
President-elect Donald Trump issued a Christmas message on Truth Social reiterating his stance on reclaiming the Panama Canal, turning Canada into America’s 51st state, and the annexation of Greenland.
“Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago),” his address on Truth Social began.
Republican lawmakers like Sen. Marco Rubio and former Rep. Matt Gaetz have previously expressed concern for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) growing influence around the canal.
A Hong Kong-based company Hutchison Ports PPC has been the operator of Balboa Port on the Pacific side and the Cristóbal Port at the Atlantic entrance of the canal since 1997 and is contracted to continue to do so for another 20 years. The Latin American nation also joined the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2017.
Trump later named Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Miami-Dade County commissioner and vice chairman of the International Trade Consortium, as his nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Panama.
Trump then wished a merry Christmas to the Canadian prime minister, whom he once again called “Governor Justin Trudeau.”
“If Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60 percent, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World,” Trump wrote.
In a separate message, he proposed that professional ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky should become Canada’s next prime minister.
Trump also extended Christmas wishes to the people of Greenland, an island that he again said is needed for U.S. national security purposes. He said the people of Greenland want the United States to be there. (More)
- The president faced criticism the day prior from one of the top judiciary officials, who said that Biden’s veto of a bipartisan bill adding 66 federal judges was “extremely disappointing.”
- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released his annual list of government spending in the past year which he considers wasteful.
- Elon Musk suggested there should be cognitive tests for elected officials following news of a congresswoman spending six months in an assisted living facility.
- Out of all the ambitions of Trump’s upcoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), one that will likely face considerable pushback in Washington is slashing the ever-growing defense budget of the United States military.
