Reactions have been strong following President-elect Donald Trump’s statements that Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal should all be part of the United States.
Hours after a wide-ranging press conference Tuesday in which Trump said he would not rule out the use of military force to retake Greenland from Denmark and the Panama Canal from Panama and that U.S. economic support for Canada was only justified if it was a state, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on X: “There is no chance that Canada will be part of the United States. »
In response to Trump’s assertion that the United States does not need Canadian cars, lumber or dairy products and should abandon its partnership with the country to build icebreaking ships, Trudeau said wrote Tuesday: “The workers and communities of our two countries benefit from being each other’s greatest partners. commercial and security partner.
On Tuesday, Trump reiterated a position taken during his first term that Greenland is essential to U.S. national security and that Denmark should sell the territory to the United States or expect to be subject to customs duties “at a very high level”.
“Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in an interview with Danish broadcaster TV2 in response to Trump’s press conference, during which the president-elect said his son Donald Trump Jr. was in the country to help him continue his term in office. plan. “There is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be for sale in the future.”
On Tuesday, Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha Vásquez told a press conference: “The sovereignty of our canal is not negotiable and is part of our history of struggle and irreversible conquest. Let’s be clear: the canal belongs to the Panamanians and it will continue to do so.”
Several Democratic members of Congress spoke to X to condemn Trump’s expansionist comments.
“Trump talks about Greenland and Canada like they are golf courses he wants to buy,” Rep. Dina Titus, Democrat of Nevada, wrote on X. “This is not a policy strategy serious foreigner; it is fanciful imperialism. Instead of intimidating our partners, let’s work with them to address the important challenges facing our world.
“House Democrats are focused on reducing the high cost of living in the United States. Do not invade Greenland,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on X.
“The American people do not want to go to war over Greenland,” Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote on X.
While many Republican congressional leaders offered no comment, Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., expressed support.
“Strong borders. The Panama Canal. The Gulf of America. Greenland,” he wrote on X. “The best days of our country are yet to come. »
At a press briefing Wednesday afternoon, White House national security spokesman John Kirby declined to speak directly about Trump’s expansionist desires.
“I have to refrain from giving a qualitative assessment of what the president-elect is saying and why he’s saying it…and what message he might be sending,” Kirby said. “These are his foreign policy statements … to be characterized by himself. And it would not be appropriate for me to do that.”
“The only thing I would point out to you is what the foreign leaders, you know, involved in all the places, have said themselves,” Kirby continued. “I think their views on some of these policy statements are pretty obvious, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to weigh in and pass judgment.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also responded to Trump’s speech to rename the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday to the “Gulf of America”. At her daily press briefing, she stood in front of a map and sarcastically argued that North America should be renamed “América Mexicana” or “Mexican America,” because a founding document from 1814 predated the Mexican constitution there. was referring.
“Sounds good, right?” she added. She also noted that the Gulf of Mexico has had that name since 1607.
Joseph Konig of Spectrum News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.