US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday refused to rule out the use of military or economic coercion to obtain the Panama Canal and Greenland. He says they should be both under the control of the United States, which, according to him, need them for the sake of their “economic security”, writes TASR.
“I am not going to commit to any military intervention. However, it may happen that something needs to be done,” Trump said at the press conference. When asked directly if he knew exclude the use of “military or economic coercion” to achieve his goal of acquiring the Panama Canal and Greenland, he answered “no”.
He claims that Greenlandwhich is an autonomous territory of Denmark, The US needs it “for national security purposes”. In turn, he designated the Panama Canal as “vital” to the United States, but “operated by China”. CNN noted that Trump made such a statement despite pre-election promises that he would avoid wars after taking the oath. “I will not start any war,” declared Trump during his victory speech in the 2024 election. “I’m going to stop wars,” he added.
At Tuesday’s press conference, he further stated that he will not use military force against Canada, but he threatened it with economic force. Trump had previously suggested that Canada join the United States after the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Canada and the United States, that would be something. You get rid of this artificially drawn border… It would also be much better for national security. Canada is basically protected by us,” he said on Tuesday.
Trump jokes about the status of the neighboring country since the November meeting with Trudeau at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. This unannounced meeting took place after he threatened to will impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods. He gave the reason that Canada can’t solve the drug or immigration problems on a common border and the United States has with it trade deficit of 100 billion dollars.
Among other things, the future US president announced on Tuesday “America’s Golden Age”. In addition, he would like to he also renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the American one. “Sounds nice,” he said, calling on Mexico to stem the flow of migrants to the US.
