President-elect Trump’s talk of territorial expansion has rattled world leaders at an already precarious time in global politics.
Trump doubled down last week on his suggestions that the U.S. buy Greenland, take control of the Panama Canal and make Canada “the 51st state.” He declined to rule out “military or economic” coercion against either Greenland or the canal, and he said he was open to using “economic force” on America’s neighbor to the north.
Leaders in the targeted regions and elsewhere have pushed back against the suggestions, even as experts are still largely undecided about how much stock to put in Trump’s threats. That kind of guessing game, experts say, isn’t good for global security as Trump heads into his second term.
“Uncertainty is bad in international affairs. You want to know that your allies are with you, and your enemies need to know that you’re resolute against them. … You want to know, more or less, what the world is going to look like in the morning,” said Peter Loge, a political science professor at George Washington University and a senior FDA adviser during the Obama administration.
Some have guessed that Trump is just trolling as he gets ready to retake the White House later this month. Others have said they think the president-elect’s comments at his Florida presser last week suggest a potential shift away from jokes and toward a more serious aim of American territorial expansion, though he hasn’t yet shared any specifics on his proposals.
“In diplomacy, language matters and signaling matters. And when you're dealing with someone as erratic as Trump is, that’s a problem, if you can't distinguish between the insult comic dog and an actual U.S. foreign policy,” said Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, with a focus on Canadian foreign policy.
Whether or not Trump’s serious, it’s obligating global leaders to respond as if he is.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — whom Trump has labeled “governor” — hit back that “there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell” that Canada would become part of the U.S. On Thursday, he quipped to CNN that one of Canadians’ defining traits is that they’re “not American” and dismissed the threats as a distraction from Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs.
Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc also said Thursday the “51st state” remarks were a way for Trump to “sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos, knowing this will never happen.”
“From a Canadian perspective, the tariff threat is real. It's not trolling. The ‘governor of Canada,’ the ‘51st state,’ the annexation — that is trolling,” Bratt said. “But when you have this hyperbolic language at the same time with other countries, it’s a bit more complicated.”
And after Trump expressed openness to possible military force on Greenland or the Panama Canal, leaders may have more to wring their hands about, Bratt said. “Whether it is trolling [or not], they’ve got to treat that seriously.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has stressed that Greenland, where Donald Trump Jr. stopped for a visit last week, “is not for sale and will not be in the future either.” Greenland Prime Minister Múte B. Egede declared Friday that the Arctic territory “is for Greenlandic people.”
The foreign minister of Panama, Javier Martínez-Acha, said earlier this week that “the only hands operating the canal are Panamanian and that is how it’s going to stay,” as reported by the BBC.
And it’s not just the Trump-mentioned countries that have stepped up to respond, though some are skeptical about the incoming president’s potential follow-through.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday guessed that Trump’s statements were more of a message to other global players than a real plan to acquire territory.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that, in a discussion with several European leaders and the head of the European Council, there was a “certain incomprehension” about comments out of the U.S. Though he didn’t mention Trump by name, Scholz emphasized that force should not be used to move borders.
“This is the fundamental problem with being the president of the United States of America; it's that people have to take your word. They may not believe that you have the guts to go through with something. They may not think you're credible, for example, ultimately. But they have to take these things seriously,” said Daniel Nexon, a professor with Georgetown University’s government department and its School of Foreign Service.
Regardless of what happens next, Trump’s comments have upped focus on the strategic importance of Greenland, a self-governing Arctic island territory that’s under Denmark’s control, amid tensions with Russia and China.
“You are asking me if I think the U.S. will invade Greenland? The answer is no. Have we entered an era that sees the return of the survival of the fittest? The answer is yes,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said this week, per Reuters translations.
Melting ice is opening up new routes through the Arctic, and Trump said the U.S. needs Greenland “for national security purposes,” questioning Denmark's right to it.
Russia, which is approaching the three-year mark of its invasion of Ukraine, is “watching the rather dramatic development of the situation very closely,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of Trump’s comments on Friday, as reported by Reuters. Moscow has also expressed a strategic interest in the area.
With regard to the Panama Canal, Trump has claimed the major shipping passage is being controlled by China, though the canal’s authority disputed the assertion. Trump has criticized former President Carter for a 1977 deal to transfer control of the canal, which was constructed by the U.S.
Loge speculated that there may not soon be any real clarity on what Trump means by the expansion talk.
“Trump has a way of saying, if things work, ‘this is what I planned all along,’ and if they don't, ‘I was kidding all along,’” Loge said.
Some domestic voices appear to be hearing Trump out. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) compared acquiring Greenland to the Louisiana Purchase — and though he condemned ever taking it by force, Fetterman said it would be a “responsible conversation” to discuss acquisition. Republican Rep. Brandon Gill (Texas) said the three target areas should be “honored” by Trump’s ambitions.
Still more global figures are approaching the situation with some levity.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford appeared to troll Trump back this week with a joking “counteroffer” to buy Alaska and Minnesota from the U.S.
And after Trump declared he hopes to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that North America should be relabeled “Mexican America.”
Trump appears to believe that “if he is unpredictable and might do a crazy thing” it gives him strategic advantages, stoking fear that could lead to concessions and cultivating the element of surprise, Nexon said, but too much unpredictability “is probably pretty dangerous.”
“We've constructed a very powerful system of influence and control globally that is centered around these partnerships and alliances that depend on the idea that there's some predictability in US behavior. That making an alliance with the United States is not making you vulnerable to exploitation, or that you can expect that the United States will come to your offense or won't seize your territory on a whim,” Nexon said.
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