— Acquiring Canada
While the president-elect ruled out using military force against Canada, he threatened to use “economic force” against Ottawa, having late last year suggested that Canada should become the 51st US state.
He called the border with the US’s northern neighbour an “artificially drawn line”.
Canadian reaction to Trump’s remarks was swift. “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a post on X.
— Taking Greenland and the Panama Canal
The president-elect refused to rule out the use of US military might to achieve his ambitions regarding Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“I’m not going to commit to that,” Trump said, when asked if he would rule out the use of the military. “It might be that you’ll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country.” He added, “We need Greenland for national security purposes.”
The Panama Canal has been solely controlled by the eponymous country since the US ended its joint partnership in controlling the strategic waterway in 1999.
Panama’s government on Wednesday flatly rejected Trump’s vision.
“The sovereignty of our canal is non-negotiable,” Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha said at a press conference. “The only hands that control the canal are Panamanian and that will remain so,” he added, emphasising that the canal serves humanity and world trade.
An autonomous territory of longtime US ally Denmark, Trump said the US needed Greenland for “national security purposes”.
France on Wednesday warned Trump against threatening the “sovereign borders” of the European Union.
“There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be, attack its sovereign borders,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio.
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