Outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump sent completely different Christmas messages on Wednesday, with Trump reiterating his controversial remarks about the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland.
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While Biden chose classic formulas for his “last” Christmas “as president,” wishing that the country would continue “to seek the light of freedom and love, of kindness and compassion, of dignity and of decency”, Donald Trump sent him a series of provocative messages on his social network Truth.
After threatening on Saturday to regain control of the Panama Canal, the president-elect notably repeated his accusations of Chinese interference. “Merry Christmas to everyone, including the wonderful Chinese soldiers who lovingly, but illegally, operate the Panama Canal.”
Trump, who estimated on Saturday that American boats should pay less for passage through the canal linking the Pacific to the Atlantic, took advantage of the opportunity to appoint Kevin Marino Cabrera as the next ambassador to Panama, “a country that we scam (…) far beyond their wildest dreams.
The Panama Canal, built by the United States and inaugurated in 1914, passed into Panamanian hands on December 31, 1999 under treaties signed in 1977 by then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
“The canal is not controlled, directly or indirectly, by China, the European Community, the United States or any other power. As a Panamanian, I firmly reject any expression that distorts this reality,” Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino retorted on Sunday, before an anti-Trump demonstration brought together around a hundred people on Tuesday in front of the American embassy in Panama.
Another target of Trump's Christmas message, Canada, which he continues to consider as a possible “51st state”, calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “governor”: “If Canada became our 51st state, their taxes would be reduced by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size and they would be protected militarily like no other country in the world.
Donald Trump also recalled his claims on Greenland, an icy territory four times the size of France which he considers strategic: “The inhabitants of Greenland, whom the United States needs for their national security, want the United States to be present, and we will be!”
“Greenland is ours” and is “not for sale,” Mute Egede, the prime minister of the autonomous territory belonging to Denmark, said on Monday.
