By Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
President-elect Trump, transactional to his core, argued Tuesday that Denmark should sell Greenland to the United States to benefit global security. He pressed Panama to forfeit control of the canal that America completed in 1914. And he vowed that “economic force” could benefit the U.S. trade relationship with Canada, an ally he derided as a potential 51st state.
Trump’s taunts and global peeves aired during a stream-of-consciousness news conference included criticism of President Biden for ordering an offshore oil drilling ban along most U.S. coastlines two weeks before his successor’s Inauguration. Upshot: Plenty of headlines, including rebukes from leaders in Denmark, Panama and Canada, and furious eye-rolling from Democrats at home.
“The Panama Canal is a disgrace,” the president-elect said. “They were supposed to treat us well. They don’t.”
What was Trump’s purpose? Canadians chalked it up to “gaining leverage.”
He “has long used bombastic rhetoric as a negotiating and posturing tool,” reports The Hill’s Brett Samuels. And Trump’s muscular messaging is well received among “America First” supporters, including in Congress.
Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of NATO member Denmark, would be an unlikely target for the use of military force. France’s foreign minister warned Trump against threatening the “sovereign borders” of the European Union.
The president-elect has a history of relying on confrontation and sometimes stunts — litigation, public derision, threats of tariffs and manufactured facts — to try to gain something he values to benefit allies while knocking perceived foes off-balance.
“This is an example of persuading people that what they thought was settled isn’t settled,” Jon Alterman, senior vice president and Zbigniew Brzezinski chair in global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Hill.
▪ The New York Times: Dripping faucets and seizing Greenland: With Trump, some things don’t change.
▪ Bloomberg News analysis: Trump’s Panama, Greenland threats signal unchained second term.
Trump shared footage Tuesday on Truth Social of the Trump-branded red, white and blue jet with Donald Trump Jr. aboard landing in Greenland. Ostensibly, the president-elect’s son was there to shoot video for a podcast. The younger Trump met with no officials during his trip but captured images of some Greenlanders wearing “Make America Great Again” caps.
Meanwhile at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect had less to share with inquiring reporters about how soon his policies can lower inflated prices, how he’ll end the war between Russia and Ukraine (which he told voters he’d do before taking office), details behind major budget, immigration and tax legislation pending with Republicans in Congress and why he believes that “obviously” windmills “are driving the whales crazy.”
