The president-elect’s threats of annexation of Canada, Greenland and Panama are unrealistic, but it would be wrong not to take them seriously.
Almost every day, these annexation threats flood the media and social networks. This is the kind of argument that Donald Trump loves to throw into the pond to monopolize attention and disorient his opponents.
Trump revived his threats Tuesday at a press conference with added layers, including his intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America.”
None of this is likely to happen, but these threats signal a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy, and not for the better.
Intimidation et humiliation
To his immediate neighbors, Trump is signaling that he will use every means at his disposal to bend them to his will, starting with the bullies’ favorite weapon: humiliation.
When he started making fun of Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump knew well that his days at the head of Canada were numbered. He also knows that humiliating a politician who has long been popular among Democrats can only please his MAGA supporters.
The same is true of the arrow he shot towards Mexico, which he attacks symbolically by seeking to rewrite the toponymy of the continent.
Its goal is to put an end to the relationship of interdependence between the North American partners to transform it into the only form of political relationship that seems to make sense in its eyes, that is, that between dominant and dominated.
In fact, his vision of the international order is an extension of his vision of the internal order, where he already sees himself as supreme leader, unencumbered by the rule of law.
Normalize the law of the strongest
Trump justifies his territorial expansion aims by the imperative of national security. Canada and Denmark are, however, strong allies of the United States and the Panama Canal Treaty provides good security guarantees for the United States. Regardless, in the spirit of “manifest destiny” of control of the American hemisphere, Trump would ultimately like to take over all sea lanes, both north and south.
The norm of equality under the law of sovereign countries is not the only one that Trump wants to undermine. By saying that he considers it legitimate for the United States to annex new territories by force, he eliminates the norm of non-territorial conquest that has prevailed for several decades. It thus opens the door to the explicit acceptance of Russian expansionism in Ukraine (and beyond), to the erasure of Palestinian territories by Israel and to annexation in fact of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China, among others.
Meanwhile, the American media normalizes this strategy of intimidation by praising Trump for his negotiating skills and deal maker.
Little by little, we see the pieces of an authoritarian state coming together where loyalty to an autocrat, sheltered from any legal constraints, will impose itself as the supreme rule. The real era of Trump is coming and, as they say in Parisyou ain’t seen nothing yet.
