Yes, Trump Still Wants the Panama Canal, Canada, Greenland, and Gaza for a Luxury Mediterranean Resort

The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Canada is making headlines for affirming that America’s northern neighbor – among its three biggest trade partners, one of its most steadfast allies, which also lost troops in Afghanistan – is in fact a country.  “Canada is a sovereign state, yes,” Pete Hoekstra told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He’s a former congressman who served as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands in President Donald Trump’s first term.  “Canada only works as a state,” Trump said the same day while in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at his side. “As a state, it would be one of the great states anyway. This would be the most incredible country visually.”  Some news outlets have portrayed this as a break with Trump, who has repeatedly called for annexing Canada as America’s 51st state. But it’s not. Hoekstra is describing what Canada is today. Trump is describing his aspirations for the future.

Since his reelection and in the early weeks of his second term, Trump has fixated on what would be massive and strategic expansions of American territory, the largest since President James K. Polk roughly doubled the United States through negotiations and conflict like the Mexican-American War.

• Canada, of course. 
• Greenland, an autonomous territory answering to Denmark. During his speech to a joint session of Congress, he told lawmakers: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

• Gaza, which he has said the United States should take over and rebuild in the style of a luxury Mediterranean resort.
• And the Panama Canal. Trump does not appear satisfied by a deal that would see a consortium that includes U.S.-based Blackrock get control of ports on either side of that strategic waterway from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.

Most inhabitants of Trump’s four targets have said, in effect, “no way.” But he has said he’s considering using economic coercion such as tariffs to get control of Canada and has refused to rule out using force in the cases of Greenland and the canal.  The White House has ordered the Pentagon to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama in the context of Trump’s insistence that he’ll be “reclaiming” the canal.

The Pentagon Denies an Increase in Troops in Panama, but does Consider Maneuvers

  “U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops seizing the Panama Canal by force,” NBC reported, citing U.S. officials. “Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the United States.” 

Coalition of the Unsettled

Trump’s imperialistic comments initially got treated as typical rhetoric. But he has repeated them – and aggressively baited Canada and former Prime Minister, or as Trump called him, Governor Justin Trudeau.

Trump has angered Canadians, Danes, Panamanians and inhabitants of Greenland and Gaza.  Coupled with his trade wars, his annexation remarks have fueled sudden resurgences of nationalism and movements in favor of boycotting American goods and reducing travel to the United States.  Whether that approach can actually be effective is an open question.  How does a player on the international stage navigate this?  Will the U.S. take over Greenland? a reporter asked Trump on Thursday during his meeting with Rutte. “I think it’ll happen,” Trump replied.

DECISION POINTS: 

 “I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental – you know, Mark, we need that for international security,” he added.  “When it comes to Greenland, yes or no, joining the U.S., I will leave that outside this discussion, because I don’t want to drag NATO into that,” Rutte said. He went on to praise Trump’s general sense of the increasing international competition over the Arctic.  Sounds like Rutte won’t be buying a “Make Greenland Great Again” T-shirt in Trump’s online political store.