Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States has not yet begun, but both he and his team have already been advancing in recent weeks what their lines of action could be once he takes office on January 20.
The proposals in the field of international politics are among the most unusual to the point that it is difficult to give them all credibility given the provocative spirit that characterizes the future president of the Republican Party.
In recent days, Trump has given life again to his already known ideas such as the purchase of the island of Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory that is part of Denmark, which he referred to in a message on the social network he owns Truth .
Last week he had already indicated that he would declare the Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations”, opening the door to a military intervention in its southern neighboror accused Panama of charging too many fees to American ships that cross the canal that runs through the Central American country, whose control the United States relinquished in 1999.
Furthermore, Trump has been referring to Canada as the “51st state” of the United States for weeks in a tone that would normally be considered merely jocular, but which, given the rest of the expansionist plansare worrying many on the other side of the northern border.
If the catalog of territorial expansion plans were carried out, they would represent an imperialist turn on the part of the great world power that would see its sovereign surface significantly expanded and would require the deployment of enormous diplomatic, economic and military resources.
The purchase of Greenland, an old aspiration
Greenland is an immense island located geographically in North America, but politically linked to Denmark since the 13th century. It currently has extensive autonomy from the Nordic country, of which it is a “constituent nation”, and even has the constitutional possibility of declaring its independence since 2009.
Its population barely reaches 60,000 inhabitants, concentrated on the southern coast and most of its 2.1 million square kilometers are covered in ice. Climate change, however, could leave a good part of the island exposed, making its rich natural resources.
During his first presidential term, in 2019, Trump already proposed that the United States buy the island, an idea that no one took very seriously, although Denmark explained that Greenland was not for sale. This past Monday, the president-elect surprisingly revived the idea in a message in Truth reporting the appointment of the new American ambassador to Denmark, stating that “the United States considers ownership and control of Greenland to be an absolute necessity.”
The response did not take long to arrive and has been the same as four years ago. The Prime Minister of Greenland, Múte Egede, categorically rejected, through Facebookthe possibility that a territorial sale was an option: “We are not for sale and we never will be.”
Return to control of the Panama Canal, 25 years later
The Panama Canal, inaugurated in 1914, represented an immense change in international shipping routes and, especially, for the United States, which was able to ostensibly remember the navigable distance between its two coasts. This country militarily controlled the canal until 1977 when it began to operate it jointly with Panama and in 1999 it completely relinquished control from the same to the Central American country.
Since then, the canal has had to face a series of droughts that have made its operation difficult, a reason that Panama has used to increase the prices it imposes for its use. This has been the official excuse for Trump who has warned the Panamanian authorities that, if these “ridiculous” prices continue, he will demand that “the Panama Canal be returned to the United States.”
The reason that many experts are seeing behind this threat, however, is the growing presence in Panama and the China Canala country that Trump sees as the great antagonist of the United States worldwide.
The response of the Panamanian authorities has been as forceful as that of the Greenland authorities and it is believed that Trump’s will will not be imposed without conflict. “As president, I want to express precisely that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belongs to Panama, and will continue to be so,” declared the country’s president, José Raúl Mulino, in a statement on Sunday. “The sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.”
A “soft intervention” in Mexico
In recent decades, Mexico has become the world capital of drug trafficking cartels, which They control large areas and command veritable armies. who face both the Mexican State and the anti-drug authorities of the United States, not in vain, the main world buyer of narcotics that are distributed from its southern border.
As Mark Esper, Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, wrote in his memoirs, Trump had already proposed in 2020 to launch missiles into Mexico to “destroy drug laboratories”, an idea that was flatly rejected at the time by his team.
Since his electoral victory in November, Trump has regained aggressive rhetoric against Mexico, a country he accuses of being too lazy with the cartels, and on Monday he announced that he will declare them “terrorist organizations.”
All this has recovered the idea of a “soft” military intervention in the territory of its southern neighbora possibility that, according to published in November by Rolling Stone magazinewould already be a fact among the next president’s new team. The debate, the magazine stated, was not whether to invade or not but to what extent to take the invasion.
In a public intervention earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum referred to this possibility: “Of course we do not agree on an invasion.”
Canada, 51st state of the Union?
Perhaps the craziest idea of all those that Trump has been putting on the table in recent years in the field of foreign policy is the annexation of Canada to the United States. A fully independent state since 1984 from its former metropolis, the United Kingdom, Canada is currently the eighth largest economy in the worlddespite its only 40 million inhabitants.
Trump already declared during the campaign his intention to revoke the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that his own Administration negotiated in 2018, considering them harmful to the United States. His likely protectionist policy will entail the imposition of new tariffs on Canada and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have expressed his concerns about this, as reported by Fox News at the beginning of the month.
Trump’s response was as provocative as it was surprising: “We can always formalize the annexation, integrate into the United States and there will be no more tariffs.” Since then, the president-elect has continued to launch hints in an ironic but disconcerting tonethat Canada should become the “51st state” – the United States is currently made up of 50 states – and referring to the Canadian Prime Minister on social media as “Governor Trudeau.”
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