Donald Trump refused Tuesday to rule out the idea of using force to annex the Panama Canal and Greenland, saying both were “very important to the economic security” of the United States.
Posted at 12:09 p.m.
Updated at 12:31 p.m.
“I can’t assure you about either one,” the president-designate said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago when asked about a possible use of the armed forces to annex the canal, a vital artery of global maritime transport, and the autonomous territory of Denmark, after having repeatedly stated that it wanted to acquire them.
Furthermore, Donald Trump declared that NATO member countries must increase their defense budgets to 5% of their GDP. “They can all afford it,” the Republican billionaire said. They should be at 5%, not 2%.”
“Gulf of America”
Donald Trump announced that upon his return to the White House, the United States would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, on the country’s southern coast, to the “Gulf of America.”
“We’re going to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which sounds good and covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a nice name,” declared the future American president during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, before castigating Mexico which “must stop leaving millions of people pouring into our country.”
Proceedings against Donald Trump
Donald Trump is asking the Department of Justice of the outgoing Joe Biden administration not to publish the report of special prosecutor Jack Smith on his investigation of the two federal criminal proceedings against him before his return to power.
The special prosecutor recommended and obtained at the end of November a halt to federal proceedings against Donald Trump for illegal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House.
After consultations, the Department of Justice concluded that its policy since the Watergate scandal in 1973, consisting of not prosecuting a sitting president, “applies to this unprecedented situation,” he explained.
However, he plans to finalize this week a confidential report for United States Attorney General Merrick Garland on his investigation of these two cases, Jack Smith confirmed Tuesday in court documents.
“The Attorney General of the United States will decide whether any part of the report should be made public,” it specifies, indicating that such a publication would not take place until January 10 at the earliest.
But Donald Trump’s lawyers, in an email to Mr. Garland on Monday, demanded that he immediately end Jack Smith’s mission and block the publication of his “illegal and bad faith” report.
Citing in particular the need for a peaceful transition and the preservation of the presumption of innocence, they indicate that they had access to a preliminary version of the final report between January 3 and 6.
