- Hubert Walas
The year 2025 has just begun, Joe Biden has not yet left the White House still Donald Trump has once again managed to shock the world by directly stating his desire to take control of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. In the case of the latter two, he did not rule out the possibility of the US using military force to defend US interests there in the future.
Such statements by Trump could have been taken as a joke at a time when he was a businessman or not in high administrative positions. But two weeks before his official inauguration, such announcements are causing great consternation.
Not long ago, we made a video on Donald Trump's "world of chaos", in which his unpredictability was presented as the leitmotif of his presidency. It did not take long for the star and director of that show to deliver the script for a new play.
What is at stake in Trump's expansionist agenda? Why is he causing such a stir before his presidency has even begun?
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Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal - these are the areas that Donald Trump would want to see within the borders of the United States of America. So let's start by sorting out the information - what exactly Trump said about each of these topics.
Let's start with Canada.
Canada
"Canada and the United States would just be something. You remove that artificially drawn line and look at what it looks like. That would be better from a national security perspective. Don't forget that we are basically protecting Canada. Why should we lose $200 billion? We don't need anything from them."
This is a statement made by Donald Trump during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. By ‘billions of dollars’, Trump was referring to the $55 billion US trade deficit with Canada, and the unspecified financial contribution that, in Trump's eyes, the US is making to Canada's military protection.
The following day, Trump uploaded an image to Truth Social platform showing Canada and the US in the colours of the American flag, framed by the comment 'Oh, Canada'.
The game with the Canadians began innocently enough, as Trump had already suggested in early December, during a lunch with the then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that Canada should become the 51st state of the US. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the meeting, was convinced that Trump was joking and teasing them. Today, LeBlanc is under no illusions - the jokes are over.
Unlike Greenland and the Panama Canal, Trump has ruled out the use of military force against his northern neighbor. The instrument of coercion, however, would be "economic force", i.e. sanctions.
The Canadians, however, are standing firm and suggesting that they would respond in kind. Canada is a major export destination for 36 US states. Nearly $2.7 billion worth of goods and services flow across the border every day.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Canada would retaliate if Trump imposed tariffs: "Right now we ship 4.3 million barrels of crude oil into the US. 60 percent of their energy imports are coming from Canada.”
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.” said outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the X portal. To which the owner of that portal, Elon Musk, responded by mocking the former Prime Minister, writing that he (although he addressed him as a woman) is no longer the ‘governor’ of Canada, so he has nothing to say.
The idea of the US and Canada merging is not new. In the early days of American statehood, the Americans invaded Quebec; a few decades later, during the War of 1812, they invaded Canada - unsuccessfully. There were also fears of a Canadian invasion during the Civil War. The situation normalised in the 20th century, when the two nations fought on the same side in both World Wars, the Korean War and the Gulf.
On the other hand, the idea of unification is extremely unpopular among Canadians. A recent poll by the Leger Centre found that as many as 82 per cent of Canadians oppose the idea of joining the US as another US state. Another Leger poll in October found that when asked which US candidate they would support if they could vote in the 2024 US elections, about two-thirds of Canadians supported Vice-President Harris, while only 21 per cent supported Trump. Canada would effectively become another California-like state, a huge Democratic bastion.
Greenland
Canada thus appears to be a fat fish that will defend itself if attacked, even against a shark of Trump's ilk. If a trade war starts, the Americans will also suffer.
So instead of starting with the main course, it might be worth starting with the appetiser, which in Trump's eyes could be Greenland. The American had a crush on the world's largest island as early as his first term. In August 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had discussed with advisers the possibility of buying the island from the Danes. The plans were then drawn up by then national security adviser John Bolton
In response, the prime minister of Denmark, whose autonomous territory is Greenland, Mette Frederiksen, called the idea absurd, prompting Trump to cancel his planned visit to Copenhagen. Now Trump is making it clear - in the case of the Panama Canal and Greenland says that he can't promise no use of military force. We need Greenland for national security purposes,' he said, also mentioning the need to deter Russian and Chinese ships.
Trump's unofficial 'delegation', led by his son Don Jr, arrived on the island shortly after his father's shock announcement.
Trump's motives are clear - the island's strategic location in the Arctic, where rivalry with the Russians and Chinese will only grow, and the raw materials that Greenland has in abundance - oil, rare earth metals, iron and more. On the other hand, the island has a population of only 56,000 and its capital, Nuuk, is closer to Washington than Copenhagen.
The Danes reject the Americans' offers, but they are beginning to feel very uncomfortable. If Trump presses on, especially if he addresses his messages directly to the islanders, urging them to secede from Denmark, things could get heated. The fact is that it is the Americans who are responsible for the island's security today, not the Danes, whose presence on the island amounts to 75 soldiers compared to the 500 or so US Marines stationed at Thule Air Base, not to mention that the Danes' conventional capabilities are many times smaller.
This is why Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark's foreign minister, stresses that Copenhagen is open to discussing with the US 'how we can work even more closely together to ensure that US ambitions in the Arctic are realised'. In response to Trump's announcements, France and Germany issued statements defending Greenland's territorial integrity and warning against the threat of military action. On the other hand, Greenland's Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede said his country was moving towards independence: 'We don't want to be Danes, we don't want to be Americans. We want to be Greenlanders.” said Egede while Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen nodded in agreement. Recent polls show that 68% of the islanders want independence from Denmark. 32% want to remain an autonomous part of Denmark.
Everything will therefore depend on the degree of determination with which Trump wants to 'snatch' Greenland. He has many instruments at his disposal - blackmail, economic pressure or even military force, which he himself mentioned. If the US army showed up on the island and announced to the Greenlanders that from now on they were Americans, would anyone be able to stop them? No. But the whole Western world as we know it, including NATO or even the UN, would be destroyed.
A violent takeover of Greenland, says US diplomat Daniel Fried, 'would destroy NATO, because then we would be no different from Vladimir Putin'.
But despite Trump's unpredictability, such a scenario is highly unlikely today. But pressure on Copenhagen and gestures towards the Greenlanders are more likely. Their outcome is difficult to predict today.
Panama Canal
Last on Trump's short list is the Panama Canal. Before Christmas, Donald Trump threatened that the US could take control of the Panama Canal if Panama did not comply with the terms of a 1977 treaty on the legal status of the waterway. Trump has suggested that this includes the excessive fees charged by the Panamanian authorities for the use of the canal.
To understand what Trump is talking about, it is important to remember that the United States signed a treaty with Panama in 1903 that allowed for the construction of a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The canal was officially opened in 1920. The area, known as the Panama Canal Zone, was administered by the United States and US law applied.
For the Panamanians, this situation was extremely uneasy. Their country was cut in half by an area over which they had no control, so over time they increasingly demanded control over it. Against this backdrop of Panamanian-American hostility, there was even a deadly riot. On 9 January 1964, a group of students tried to fly the Panamanian flag next to the US flag at a school in the zone. They were stopped and a riot ensued in which 22 Panamanians and four Americans were killed. Growing tensions over the canal led the administration of President Jimmy Carter and Panama's military dictator Omar Torrijos to sign two treaties in 1977 to transfer control of the vital shipping lane by the end of 1999. However, the United States reserved the right to defend the canal against any threat to its neutrality.
Today, Trump describes the Carter Treaty as an ‘disgrace’.
In two lengthy posts on Truth Social, Trump accused Panama of charging exorbitant fees to US ships to pass through the critical waterway. He also claimed that treaties allowing Panama to take control of the canal in the first place also allow the US to reclaim it.
‘If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question’ - Trump wrote.
Trump's comments prompted a sharp response from Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, who called Panama's control of the waterway as ‘non-negotiable’.
‘As president, I want to make it clear that every square metre of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama and will remain so,’ Mulino said.
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These abbreviated descriptions are just a backdrop to what is really relevant to the whole issue. Of course - both Greenland and the Panama Canal, not to mention Canada, are important to America. Location, raw materials, strategy - their importance is undeniable. But in the end, no one in the group of 'administrators' of these territories is playing against America, on the contrary - it could be said that these are eminently pro-American places that care a great deal about the relationship with Washington, because they realise that this is the single most important international relationship they have to care about.
Even among allies, there are imbalances and disagreements, but usually mature diplomacies deals with them in the privacy of cabinets. Trump does it loudly and makes a spectacle of it. Why? There are several answers, and they are not mutually exclusive.
Ego
First, ego. Trump wants to be remembered, he wants to do something big. Something so that his bust and name will be carved in stone, while children will learn about him in school textbooks, right next to America's greatest presidents like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt. A Nobel Peace Prize? Sure, but Obama already has that. Canada, Greenland or Panama would be a way bigger deal. Other options for 'building his own greatness' include managing the Russia-Ukraine war or the conflict on the Korean peninsula. Then there is Taiwan and China. The President-elect takes every opportunity to build on his legacy - including his desire to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Trump wants to be remembered, he's four years to do it, and he's on it since day one.
Chaos
Second, we have the strategy we described in the 'Chaos is the New Normal' episode, undertaken consciously or not. By throwing in new, often unexpected agendas, Trump is forcibly imposing his own narrative on the world, forcing the rest to react - all the while pulling another 'rabbit' out of his hat, constantly taking the initiative. In a sense, he is setting the whole relationship in an action-reaction format, with the US in the role of setting the rhythm.
This is a complete reversal of Western policy over the past 20 years, when autocratic states were usually the initiators, often taking offensive action while the West was forced to react, often making it slowly and inadequately. Seizing the initiative gives Trump the opportunity to play the rest in a way that suits US interests.
Bussiness
Moreover, like any good salesman, Trump knows that the more leverage he has, the better the 'deal' he will get. So by lobbing accusations or threats left and right about trade imbalances, for example, or making outright politically incorrect proposals like those mentioned in this episode, he naturally builds up capital for future negotiations. Canada may happily agree to rebalance trade as long as Trump abandons the expansionist narrative, Greenland and Denmark will agree to build a new US military base and allow US mining companies in on preferential terms as long as the issue of annexation is gone. Similarly, Panama could agree to more favourable conditions for US use of the canal.
The external actors watching this theatre may also unconsciously adopt a submissive attitude towards Trump, fearing his aggressive stance in bilateral relations, according to the principle of "don't poke the bear". Trump may thus force allies to take a hard line with the US in its rivalry with China, otherwise they themselves may fall under the 'US train'.
Style
However, it should be remembered that Trump is always fond of rhetorical hyperbole. His pronouncements are usually an exaggeration of actual action, and he rarely achieves the results he literally promises to deliver. Did Mexico pay for the border wall? Has Trump led to a breakthrough on the Korean peninsula? In both cases, the answer is no.
This is also a potential weakness in Trump's policymaking, if only on the international stage. If he continues to use this style without results, he will lose the "fear capital" he is currently building up. It will also take its toll on the reputation of the US, whose president is proving to be unreliable. Trump therefore needs to double down on his threats from time to time and/or use them relatively infrequently.
The paradigm shift
To sum it up, we live in a different world today, and Trump is loudly saying what the rules of that world will be. The idyll and honeymoon period is over. The guarantor of the system now speaks the language of roughness. Trump has upped the ante even further in recent days, saying that NATO countries should spend up to 5% (!) of GDP on defence, which even the leader of the list - Poland, which spends over 4% of GDP on the military - does not do today.
This world of force is not alien to dictators and autocrats, who have always lived in constant confrontation, but the new reality is a bucket of cold water on the heads of European leaders in particular.
Is this what the headlines of the world's newspapers and portals will look like in the next few years? If we assume that the whole world and its elements operate within certain cycles, then this will be the case. The cycle of the relative 'global stillness’ has certainly come to an end. We are now in the 'no holds barred' period. A time of redefinition of many concepts and divisions. Time of reckoning. If someone has forgotten to do their homework, it may be too late today.
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