{"id":170,"date":"2024-12-29T13:16:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T13:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2024\/12\/29\/trump-lobs-threats-at-greenland-panama-and-canada-should-we-take-him-seriously-the-guardian-us\/"},"modified":"2024-12-29T13:16:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-29T13:16:28","slug":"trump-lobs-threats-at-greenland-panama-and-canada-should-we-take-him-seriously-the-guardian-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2024\/12\/29\/trump-lobs-threats-at-greenland-panama-and-canada-should-we-take-him-seriously-the-guardian-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump lobs threats at Greenland, Panama and Canada \u2013 should we take him seriously? – The Guardian US"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cM<\/span>erry Christmas,\u201d Donald Trump<\/a> wrote on his Truth Social platform on Christmas Day with a photo of himself and his wife, Melania. So far, so traditional. But the US president-elect was just getting started.<\/p>\n

In another post, Trump wished merry Christmas to all \u201cincluding to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama canal\u201d. He poked fun at the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and claimed<\/a> the US could annex Canada as its 51st state. For good measure, he addressed \u201cthe people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes and, who want the US to be there, and we will!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the type of diatribe that, if delivered by a drunk uncle at the Christmas dinner table, might be laughed off or undercut by \u201cAnyone for dessert?\u201d But Trump, 78, is less than a month away from accessing the nuclear codes and commanding the strongest military in the world. No one is quite sure whether to take him literally or seriously<\/a> \u2013 or both.<\/p>\n

Notoriously mercurial and whimsical, this is the man who, it was once said, does not play three-dimensional chess but more often than not is just eating the pieces. There are also suspicions that Trump is looking for leverage as part of the \u201cart of the deal\u201d \u2013 and that the former reality TV star is grabbing headlines to look strong at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

Reed Galen<\/a>, president of JoinTheUnion.us, a pro-democracy coalition, said: \u201cThe guy\u2019s been a troll for nearly 80 years. The problem is now he happens to be a troll who is about to run, again, the most powerful nation that humanity has ever known. He wants to do this because he wants outrage. He wants, to the extent that he thinks he can induce it, fear or panic. Chaos is the coin of his realm and it always will be because things being out of control is the only way he\u2019s in control.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of buying Greenland is not a new one for Trump. When he first raised the prospect<\/a> of purchasing the vast strategic island, a Danish territory, during his first term in 2019, it was widely treated as a joke. But then Trump cancelled a trip to Denmark after its prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, spurned him.<\/p>\n

Trump revived his push last weekend when naming his ambassador to Copenhagen, saying the \u201cownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity\u201d for US national security. But he received the same answer, with Greenland\u2019s prime minister, M\u00fate Egede, saying on Monday<\/a> the resource-rich island is \u201cnot for sale\u201d.<\/p>\n

At first glance, it all seems like political theatre of the absurd. But Trump, the disrupter-in-chief, has made a habit of turning the unthinkable into the thinkable into the inevitable.<\/p>\n

Galen said: \u201cWe should take him seriously. If he shows up in Copenhagen with a $1tn check for Greenland<\/a>, maybe the Danes will take it \u2013 I don\u2019t know. But remember, too, this is a guy who\u2019s never actually paid for anything in his life so whenever he says, I want to buy it, that\u2019s not how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the president-elect has also taken aim at Panama. He condemned what he called unfair fees for US ships passing through and threatened to demand control of the Panama canal<\/a> be returned to Washington.<\/p>\n

Trump said last Sunday<\/a> if Panama did not agree \u201cthen we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America \u2013 in full, quickly and without question\u201d. He also hinted at China\u2019s growing influence around the canal, which was built by the US in 1914 to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It was returned to Panama under a 1977 deal.<\/p>\n

Panama\u2019s president, Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino, dismissed Trump\u2019s threats, saying that \u201cevery square metre\u201d of the canal would remain in Panamanian hands. Trump responded on Truth Social: \u201cWe\u2019ll see about that!\u201d<\/p>\n

As if two diplomatic spats were not enough, Trump has repeatedly teased neighbouring Canada<\/a> that it would be a \u201cgreat idea\u201d to become the 51st US state \u2013 against a dark backdrop of threatened tariffs. He has also mockingly referred to Trudeau as \u201cgovernor\u201d \u2013 a title used by the top elected officials in each of the 50 US states.<\/p>\n

Canada has sought to turn the other cheek. In an interview with Politico\u2019s Playbook Deep Dive podcast<\/a>, Kirsten Hillman, Canada\u2019s ambassador to the US, said: \u201cI think that the president-elect is having a bit of fun. Canada can take it. You know, we have a strong sense of who we are and we can dish it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Icebergs<\/picture><\/div>
<\/svg><\/span>Large Icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk in Greenland.<\/span> Photograph: Felipe Dana\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Indeed, Trump made plenty of rash statements in his first White House term that came to naught, including nuking hurricanes to stop them hitting the US and suggesting the injection of bleach to cure Covid. The second time around, however, feels different<\/a>. Dubbed an \u201cAmerican Caesar\u201d, Trump seems bolder, better organised and more intentional.<\/p>\n

He now understands where the levers of power and pressure points are and is surrounded by more pliant loyalists. Whereas his first approach to Greenland was based on the instincts of a property developer, this time he is citing national security concerns \u2013 a sales pitch likely to have greater resonance on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

Few experts expect him to declare war on Canada, Denmark<\/a> or Panama \u2013 but they do perceive a combination of bluffing and bullying designed to throw allies off balance and achieve smaller wins. This harsh treatment stands in stark contrast to Trump\u2019s repeated praise for leaders including Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine in 2022 in a land grab of his own.<\/p>\n

For some it is horribly reminiscent of the imperialist \u201cgreat game\u201d of the 19th century. Brett Bruen<\/a>, a former global engagement director of the Barack Obama White House, said: \u201c<\/em>It\u2019s astonishing in the 21st century that we are still talking about global powers trying to take, whether by force or pressure, territory from other countries. We have the example of Putin trying to retake Ukraine. We have the example of China trying to take large swaths of the South China Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruen, president of the public affairs agency Global Situation Room, added: \u201cNow we have Trump, who essentially is trying to force both Greenland and Panama to give up territory against their will, and that violates every fundamental principle of both international law and international stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt opens a Pandora\u2019s box of crises that would likely not be contained, because if Trump can threaten other countries\u2019 borders then [Recep Tayyip] Erdo\u011fan [of Turkey] and Mohammed bin Salman [of Saudi Arabia] and a whole host of other unsavoury leaders are going to do likewise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s sabre-rattling at Panama, and reported plans for a \u201csoft invasion\u201d of Mexico, targeting drug cartels through cross-border special forces operations or drone strikes, are likely to stir bad memories of the US<\/a> among Latin American leaders and could push some into China\u2019s embrace.<\/p>\n

In 1973, for example, the US instigated a coup against Chile\u2019s then president, Salvador Allende<\/a>, a socialist who had been democratically elected. In 1989 the US invaded Panama <\/a>to overthrow the military dictator Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the US on drug-trafficking charges. President George HW Bush told the nation that his objectives were to protect American lives, restore democracy, bring Noriega to justice and \u201censure the integrity of the Panama canal treaties\u201d before Panama took full control of it in 1999.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s sudden expansionism is doubly strange, because he has sharply criticised past US misadventures overseas. He obtained a series of deferments<\/a> during the Vietnam war, railed against George W Bush\u2019s invasion of Iraq and boasted that he did not take the US into any new wars during his presidency. His \u201cAmerica first\u201d policy preaches isolationism, not foreign entanglements.<\/p>\n

But for Larry Jacobs<\/a>, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, there are echoes of President Richard Nixon\u2019s \u201cmadman theory\u201d \u2013 embracing irrationality to keep adversaries guessing and on the defensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is making a series of outrageous, impossible threats,\u201d Jacobs said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to buy Greenland? It\u2019s not for sale, it\u2019s a sovereign country, it\u2019s just ridiculous. What he\u2019s done with Canada is in a similar land of make-believe. The Panama canal? That\u2019s been settled for decades now. But it\u2019s all a tactic in his mind for how to disrupt the status quo and improve the bargaining position of his White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Joe Biden rapidly becoming the ghost of Christmas past, Trump is the ghost of Christmas future for the next four years. Jacobs warned: \u201cIt\u2019s an appetiser before the main course with Trump. This is going to be the presidency again. It\u2019s about chaos. It\u2019s about unpredictability. It\u2019s about a kind of madman approach to the most powerful office on planet earth. It\u2019s terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMerry Christmas,\u201d Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Christmas Day with a photo of himself and his wife, Melania. So far, so traditional. But the US president-elect was just getting started. In another post, Trump wished merry Christmas to all \u201cincluding to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}