{"id":8924,"date":"2024-12-24T15:17:18","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T07:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=8924"},"modified":"2024-12-24T15:17:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T07:17:21","slug":"trumps-wish-to-control-greenland-and-panama-canal-not-a-joke-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=8924","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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President-elect Donald J. Trump has accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the Panama Canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the decades-old treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.\u00a9\u00a0Federico Rios for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has both security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mr. Trump appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.\u00a9\u00a0Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s tone has had none of the trolling jocularity that surrounded his repeated suggestions in recent weeks that Canada should become America\u2019s \u201c51st state,\u201d including his social media references to the country\u2019s beleaguered prime minister as \u201cGovernor Justin Trudeau.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark \u2014 which controls Greenland\u2019s foreign and defense affairs \u2014 Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass<\/a> could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote on social media, \u201cthe United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,\u201d he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. \u201cThis complete \u2018rip-off\u2019 of our country will immediately stop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the \u201cwrong hands,\u201d an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, the government of Greenland immediately rejected Mr. Trump\u2019s demands, as it did in 2019, when he first floated the idea. \u201cGreenland is ours,\u201d Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement. \u201cWe are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Danish prime minister\u2019s office was more circumspect, writing in a statement that the government was \u201clooking forward to working with the new administration\u201d and offering no further comment on Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Mr. Trump brought up the Panama Canal again in a speech on Sunday<\/a>, Panama\u2019s president, Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino, said in a video that \u201cevery square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.\u201d He added: \u201cOur country\u2019s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the president-elect\u2019s statements \u2014 and the not-so-subtle threats behind them \u2014 were another reminder that his version of \u201cAmerica First\u201d is not an isolationist creed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His aggressive interpretation of the phrase evokes the expansionism, or colonialism, of President Theodore Roosevelt, who cemented control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. And it reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world\u2019s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump has often suggested that he does not always see the sovereignty of other nations\u2019 borders as sacrosanct. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his first response was not a condemnation of the blatant land grab, but rather the observation that President Vladimir V. Putin\u2019s move was an act of \u201cgenius.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even now, as Mr. Trump seeks a deal to end the war in Ukraine, he has never said that the country\u2019s borders must be restored, a key demand of the United States and NATO \u2014 he has only promised a \u201cdeal\u201d to end the fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the cases of Greenland and Panama, both commercial and national security interests are at play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s desire for Greenland was made explicit in the first term, when a wealthy New York friend of his, Ronald S. Lauder, the New York cosmetics heir, put the idea in his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Trump White House in 2019, the National Security Council was suddenly delving into the details of how the United States would pull off a land acquisition of that size. Mr. Trump kept pressing the point with Denmark, which consistently rebuffed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump was not the first president to make the case: Harry S. Truman wanted to buy Greenland after World War II, as part of a Cold War strategy for boxing out Soviet forces. Mr. Trump can make a parallel argument, especially as Russia, China and the United States jockey for control of Arctic routes for commercial shipping and naval assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arctic experts did not dismiss Mr. Trump\u2019s Greenland bid as a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot that many people are laughing about it now,\u201d said Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defense College in Denmark who focuses on Arctic security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Jacobsen noted that the reaction in Denmark to Mr. Trump\u2019s latest bid had been one of fury (one Danish politician called it<\/a> \u201can unusually strange way to be an ally\u201d). But, he said, Greenlanders \u2014 who have long sought independence \u2014 may seek to use Mr. Trump\u2019s interest as an opportunity to further strengthen economic ties with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2009, Greenland has had the right to declare its independence, but the vast territory of about 56,000 people is still heavily dependent on Denmark and has never chosen to pursue that path. Mr. Trump\u2019s interest could give Greenland an opening for more U.S. investments, including in tourism or rare earth mining, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWas it crazy when the U.S. acquired Alaska? Was it crazy when the U.S. built the Panama Canal?\u201d asked Sherri Goodman, a former Pentagon official and a senior fellow with the Wilson Center Polar Institute, a Washington-based think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Goodman, whose book \u201cThreat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security\u201d centers in part on the Arctic, said the United States did have a strong interest in ensuring that China in particular does not develop a strong presence in Greenland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beijing\u2019s ambitions in the Arctic have grown, and in 2018 it laid out plans to build infrastructure and develop shipping lanes opened by climate change. Ms. Goodman said the United States should continue to prevent China from gaining a foothold in the doorstep to North America, but said Greenlanders must decide their own fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to have all those territories proximate to our own mainland territory to protect us and also to prevent an adversary from using it to our strategic disadvantage,\u201d Ms. Goodman said. \u201cOn the other hand, there is international law and international order and sovereignty, and Greenland is still a part of Denmark.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to Panama, Mr. Trump may also hold a distant personal grudge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Panamanian police officers ousted the Trump Organization from the Trump International Hotel in Panama City after a protracted legal battle<\/a> between the president-elect\u2019s family and the majority owner of the property. The Trump name subsequently came down. The company had held a contract to manage the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David L. Goldwyn, who served at the State Department under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, noted that Greenland has tremendous undeveloped natural resources, including more than 43 of the 50 so-called critical rare earth elements used to make electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCertainly if Greenland chose to develop these resources, it would provide a significant alternative to China, although it is China\u2019s capacity to process those minerals which gives it its current advantage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mr. Goldwyn said that in addition to Denmark\u2019s sovereignty, Mr. Trump might find that Greenland\u2019s Indigenous communities do not want mining and resource extraction as much as he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is highly unlikely resource extraction could be forced on an unwilling population,\u201d he said. \u201cA more fruitful path might be to collaborate with the Danish government and Greenland\u2019s population on ways to safely and sustainably develop those resources.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has both security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership. Mr. Trump\u2019s tone has had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2969,2573,1724],"class_list":["post-8924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-canal","tag-panama","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=8924\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. 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