“We are not for sale and we never will be” : on December 23, the Prime Minister of Greenland became the latest to respond to Donald Trump, who once again said he covets his territory. In a few days, the next president of the United States also targeted Canada, suggesting making it the 51ste American state; Mexico, floating the idea of military intervention against the cartels; or even Panama, where he threatened to regain control of the canal.
And The Wall Street Journal saw in all these statements “invective” prefiguring a “conflicting foreign policy”, The New York Times stresses that his comments on Greenland cannot be assimilated to his mockery against Canada “Governor Justin Trudeau”.
“Absolute necessity”
They actually seem much more serious: “while appointing a new ambassador to Denmark, the country which controls Greenland's foreign policy and its defense, Trump made it clear that his offer to purchase the territory, launched in his first term, could become impossible for the Dane during his second presidency”, writes the newspaper.
Interested in both its strategic location and its natural resources, the Republican posted on Sunday: “In the eyes of the United States of America, possession and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
Likewise, in Panama, he invoked both commercial and strategic interests of Washington to indicate that he “would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned full control of the Canal Zone to Panama,” whose rights were transferred in 1903 to the United States.
In the American expansionist tradition
Enough to demonstrate, according to the center-left newspaper, that “his ‘America First’ philosophy includes an expansionist dimension.” Far from being purely isolationist, it would thus be in line with the expansionism of President Theodore Roosevelt, who, at the beginning of the 20the century, “established American domination over the Philippines”. While also demonstrating “his instincts as a real estate developer” for whom everything can be bought.
“It doesn’t make many people laugh anymore,” declares to New York Times Marc Jacobsen, an Arctic specialist at the Royal Danish Defense College, on Trump's comments on Greenland.
The Washington Post recalls that other presidents of the United States considered acquiring this territory, notably Harry Truman. Under his presidency marked by the beginnings of the Cold War, Washington offered 100 million dollars for this territory. Earlier in its history, the country had already expanded by buying Louisiana from France, then Alaska from Russia.
