At a press conference on Tuesday, Donald Trump said that it’s possible that he’ll use military force to control Greenland and the Panama Canal once he’s president.
Q: Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of areas like Greenland or Panama you are not gonna use military or economic coercion? TRUMP: No. I can’t assure you. I’m not going to commit to that. It might be that you’ll have to do something. pic.twitter.com/YbscfcOgmH— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2025
A reporter asked Trump if he could assure that he would not use military or economic coercion to assume control of the two territories, of which he previously said he wants to seize control.
“No. I can’t assure you on either of those two, but I can say this: We need them for economic security,” he said, later adding that “it might be that you’ll have to do something.”
Trump can’t seem to stop bringing up the potential purchase of Greenland, which his son Donald Trump Jr. is currently visiting to reportedly record a podcast.
“Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland. The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The “reps” Trump referred to are conservative activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point and his incoming personnel director Sergio Gor.
“I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA.’ My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday evening.
Trump ally and financier Elon Musk has expressed support for the fixation on Greenland.
“The people of Greenland should decide their future and I think they want to be part of America!” he wrote on X.
Greenland is an autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark. At a press conference on Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that the island is not for sale, referencing a previous statement from Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede.
“[Egede] has been very, very clear … that there is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either,” Frederiksen said.
Trump’s fixation on Greenland isn’t new. As president in 2019, Trump canceled a planned trip to the island when Frederiksen rebuked his proposal, calling it “absurd.”
“Pissing everybody off by saying we’re just going to buy them outright really bruises our bilateral relationship with the Danes and more importantly ruins any kind of way for us to work this out with Greenlanders,” Jim Townsend, a former senior Pentagon official who has worked on issues related to NATO and defense policy in the Arctic region, told Politico,
Trump has also complained about control of the Panama Canal, which was turned over to the Panamanian government to fulfill a treaty in 1999. After Trump claimed that China controls the canal and that the United States needs to reassert control of the vital shipping lane, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rebuffed him.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be,” he said in a video released in December.
Before even taking office, Trump has already set off international friction with Denmark, Panama, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Who will be next?
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