The President-elect Donald J. Trump refused on Tuesday to rule out the use of military or economic coercion to force Panama to give up control of the canal that America built more than a century ago and to push Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States. During a rambling, hourlong news conference, Mr. Trump repeatedly touched on the theme of American sacrifice in building the canal and falsely accused China of operating it today. When pressed on the question of whether he might order the military to force Panama to give it up — in violation of treaties and other agreements reached during the Carter administration — or to do the same with Greenland, he said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.” “We need them for economic security — the Panama Canal was built for our military,” he said. Asked again if he would rule out the use of military force, he said: “I’m not going to commit to that. You might have to do something.” Mr. Trump’s statements have pushed his repeated calls for expanding American territory to a new level, one that is bound to disturb three American allies — Panama; Denmark, which handles Greenland’s foreign and security affairs; and Canada, which he has mocked as America’s “51st State.” On Tuesday, however, he made clear that he was not joking, suggesting that if Canada remained a sovereign state, the financial cost to its trading relationship with the United States could be crushing. This may just be a posture of Trump to negotiate for advantages. However, since the late 19th century when William McKinley expanded the territory of the United States through the Spanish-American War and ended up with control of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, there has been no President-elect in American history who has so openly threatened the use of force to expand the country’s territorial boundaries. This reminds us that Trump’s definition of ‘America First’ is far from isolationism. He comes to American foreign policy with the mindset of a real estate developer, eager to grab territory.
Read from: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/us/politics/trump-panama-canal-greenland.html