President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would not rule out the use of military force to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland because he said U.S. control of those two territories is vital for American national security.
Speaking to reporters less than two weeks before he takes office on January 20 and while a delegation of aides and advisers including Donald Trump Jr. is in Greenland, Mr. Trump left open the possibility of using the American army to secure the two territories. The president’s intention marks a rejection of decades of U.S. policy that prioritized self-determination over territorial expansion.
“I’m not going to commit to that,” said Donald Trump, when asked if he ruled out the use of the army. “You might need to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country,” he said, adding that the United States “needs Greenland for national security reasons.”
Greenland, home to a major U.S. military base, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally and founding member of NATO. Mr. Trump has expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Denmark’s claim to Greenland.
The Panama Canal has been controlled exclusively by the eponymous country for more than 25 years. The United States returned the Panama Canal Zone to the country in 1979 and ended its joint partnership for control of the strategic waterway in 1999.
Responding to Donald Trump’s comments in an interview with Danish television channel TV2, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the United States Denmark’s “most important and closest ally.” She also stressed that she did not believe the United States would use military or economic power to gain control of Greenland.
Ms Frederiksen reiterated that she welcomed the increased US interest in the Arctic region, but that it “should be done in a way that is respectful to the Greenlandic people”.
“At the same time, this must be done in a way that allows Denmark and the United States to continue to cooperate, among others, within NATO,” she said.
Earlier, the president-elect posted a video of his private plane landing in Nuuk, the Arctic territory’s capital, in a landscape of snow-capped peaks and fjords.
“Don Jr. and my representatives land in Greenland,” he wrote. “The reception was wonderful. They and the free world need security, safety, strength and PEACE! This is an agreement that must come to fruition. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
In a statement, Greenland’s government said Donald Trump Jr.’s visit was “as a private individual” and not an official visit, and that Greenlandic representatives would not meet with him.
Other targets
The Republican also raised the idea of Canada joining the United States as the 51st state. He argued Tuesday that he would not use military force to invade the country, but would instead rely on “economic force.”
Promising a “golden age of America,” Donald Trump also argued that he would try to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” saying that it “sounds great.”
He also said he believed NATO should significantly increase its spending targets, with members of the transatlantic alliance pledging to spend at least 5% of their GDP on defense spending, up from the current 2%.
In June, NATO announced that a record 23 of its 32 member nations were on track to meet that goal, as Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine raised the threat of an expansion of the conflict. in Europe.
Joe Biden targeted
Donald Trump also used his news conference to complain that President Joe Biden was jeopardizing his transition to power, a day after the outgoing president moved to ban offshore energy drilling in most federal waters.
Joe Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, has used his authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the parts of the Bering Sea from northern Alaska for future oil and natural gas leases. In total, about 625 million acres of federal waters have been withdrawn from energy exploration by Mr. Biden in a move that could require an act of Congress to reverse it.
“I’m going to put things back on day one,” said Mr. Trump, who pledged to take the matter to court “if necessary.”
Donald Trump said the outgoing president’s effort — part of a series of final actions by the ruling Democratic administration — undermined his plans.
“You know, they told me that we were going to do everything possible to make this transition to the new administration go smoothly,” Mr. Trump said. It’s not smooth.”
Joe Biden’s team, however, has extended access and increased courtesies to Donald Trump’s team, something the former Republican president had initially denied Joe Biden after his 2020 election victory. Mr. Trump, Susie Wiles, told Axios in an interview published Monday that Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, “has been very helpful.”
In a lengthy speech, Donald Trump also blasted the work of special prosecutor Jack Smith, who oversaw now-discontinued prosecutions over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and possession of classified documents after leaving office in 2021 The Justice Department is expected to soon release a report from Mr. Smith summarizing its investigation after the criminal cases were forced to end by Mr. Trump’s victory in November.
