First it was Canada, then the Panama Canal. NOW, Donald Trump wants Greenland again.
The president-elect renews his unsuccessful calls during his first term for the United States to buy Greenland of Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he is fighting even before taking office on January 20.
In an announcement Sunday naming his ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that “For reasons of national security and freedom around the world, the United States of America believes that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity. »
Trump has plans again for Greenland after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the United States could regain control of the Panama Canal if nothing is done to ease rising transportation costs needed to get there. use of the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
He also suggested that Canada become the 51st U.S. state and called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 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 changes to friendly countries are reminiscent of the aggressive style he used when he was in business.
“You ask for something unreasonable and it’s more likely you’ll 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, is located between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 80% covered by an ice cap and is home to a major American military base. He took over from Denmark in 1979 and his prime minister, Múte Bourup Egede, suggested that Trump’s latest calls for US control would be as meaningless as those made during his first term.
“Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and never will be,” he said in a statement. “We must not lose our years-long struggle for freedom. »
Trump canceled a visit to Denmark in 2019 after his offer to buy Greenland was rejected by Copenhagen and ultimately went nowhere.
He also suggested on Sunday that the United States was being “ripped off” at the Panama Canal.
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not respected, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in its entirety, quickly and without question “, he said.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to do so,” but Trump responded on his social media site: “We will see that!”
The president-elect also posted a photo of an American flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase “Welcome to the United States Canal!” »
The United States built the canal in the early 1900s, 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 droughts of 2023 which forced it to significantly reduce the number of daily vessel crossing slots. With fewer ships, administrators also increased the fees charged to shippers to reserve slots to use the canal.
The outbreaks of violence in Greenland and Panama followed Trump’s recent declaration that “Canadians want Canada to become the 51st state” and the offering of an image of himself superimposed on the summit of a mountain surveying the surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag.
Trudeau suggested that 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 products.
“Canada will not be part of the United States, but Trump’s comments are more about leveraging what he says to extract concessions from Canada by putting Canada off balance, especially given the current precarious political environment in Canada,” Farnsworth said. “Maybe claim victory over trade concessions, border strengthening or other things.”
He said the situation was similar in Greenland.
“What Trump wants is a victory,” Farnsworth said. “And even if the American flag doesn’t fly over Greenland, Europeans might be more inclined to say yes to something else because of the pressure.”
–Associated Press Writer Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.
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