Speaking to reporters at his private Florida club Mar-a-Lago President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out using military coercion to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Trump recently repeated his seemingly far-fetched suggestions that the US should take over Greenland and Canada, the latter coming hours after long-standing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation.
In the press conference, Trump said giving the Panama Canal away was a “mistake”. After a reporter asked if he could “assure the world” that he would not use military or economic coercion to take control of areas like Greenland and the Panama Canal, Trump responded: “I won’t commit to that.”
He said that he would not be open to military force in Canada, although he did explicitly mention “economic force” as a viable option. “We’re spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada,” “adding that “we don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we don’t need anything they have.”
Pressed on Greenland, Trump said “I don’t know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.” If Denmark doesn’t choose to come to a “conclusion”, he added that “I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.”
Greenland was a Danish colony until it became a self-governing territory of Denmark in 1979. In January, its prime minister Mute Egede repeated calls for the island to hold an independence referendum.
Egede has not yet commented on Trump’s recent claims, but in December said that Greenland was “not for sale and will never be for sale.”
