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Trump Won't Rule Out Military Force to Seize Control of Panama Canal, Greenland
Trump claimed both the canal and the Danish territory are needed for U.S. "economic security."
Jan 07, 2025
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has been rebuked in recent days by the leaders of both Panama and Denmark for his insistence that the Panama Canal and Danish territory Greenland must be under American control, and his latest comments on Tuesday were expected to garner more anger—and eye-rolling—from abroad.
At a press conference at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, the Republican leader refused to rule out using military force to take over the canal and Greenland.
"It might be that you'll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country," said Trump. "We need Greenland for national security purposes."
He added that both the canal and Greenland, the world's largest island and home to a U.S. military base, are needed for U.S. "economic security."
Under President Jimmy Carter, who died late last month, the U.S. signed a treaty returning the Panama Canal Zone to Panama in 1979, and the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been solely controlled by the Panamanian government since 1999.
Trump repeated a false claim that the canal is being "operated by China."
Last month, after the president-elect demanded "that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly and without question," Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino posted a video to social media in response.
"As president, I want to clearly state that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama's and will remain so," Mulino said. "The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable."
Trump's comments came as his son, Donald Trump Jr., joined right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and other Trump allies on a visit to Greenland.
The president-elect suggested in a social media post that the trip was made in an official capacity, writing: "The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!"
But Greenland officials clarified that Trump Jr. was visiting only as a "private individual" and said no representatives would be meeting with him.
Trump said at his press conference that "people really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to [Greenland], but if they do they should give it up because we need it for national security."
Greenland is home to 60,000 people, and is self-ruling with its own legislature while its foreign and defense policy are controlled by Denmark. The Arctic island lies in a region where global powers are vying for military and economic control.
Trump also expressed a desire to purchase Greenland during his first term, a goal that was dismissed at the time as "absurd" by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
"Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders," Frederiksen reiterated on Tuesday.
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'We Are Not for Sale': Greenland Once Again Rebuffs Trump Call for US Ownership
"A whole lot of gullible people were telling me he was the anti-war, anti-imperial candidate," one observer said of Trump.
Dec 23, 2024
"Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom."
That was the message from leftist Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede on Monday after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump once again called for American ownership of the autonomous Danish territory—the latest in a string of what critics have called imperialistic statements by the Republican leader.
"For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday in a post announcing his nomination of PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark.
During his first term, Trump directed his aides to examine whether the United States could purchase Greenland, which is home to the U.S. Space Force's Pituffik Space Base. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who is still in office, dismissed the idea as "absurd," prompting Trump to cancel a planned state visit to the Nordic nation.
Aaja Chemnitz, a member of Egede's democratic socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit (Community of the People) party representing Greenland in the Danish Parliament, toldRitzau that it is "very disrespectful" of Trump to treat Greenland as something that could be bought.
"I think the words 'ownership' and 'control' from a future president of the United States, which controls the entire Western world's foreign and security policy, is a reasonably clear signal that the intention is to buy Greenland," she said.
Chemnitz also took aim at "disrespectful" Danish politicians who "say that it's only a decision for Denmark."
"This would be a decision for Greenland and the people of Greenland," she said. "We have extended autonomy in Greenland. And as far as I know, no political party in Greenland wishes to become American citizens."
Greenlanders have a complicated relationship with the United States. While a majority of people polled in a 2021 survey wanted closer relations with the U.S., many remain wary over incidents including the 1968 "broken arrow" loss of four thermonuclear warheads when a B-52 bomber crashed into the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord. The accident caused widespread radioactive contamination and the nuclear fuel components of one of the bombs remain unrecovered to this day.
Trump's latest remarks on Greenland came on the same day he threatened to retake control of the Panama Canal and after he suggested making Canada the "51st state." Trump and senior members of his transition team are also reportedly mulling the question, "How much should we invade Mexico?"
The U.S. seized half of Mexico's territory after invading the country under false pretenses in 1846, one of at least 10 invasions of the southern neighbor. More recently, U.S. forces invaded Panama in 1989 after turning on erstwhile ally Gen. Manuel Noriega over his involvement in narco-trafficking. At least hundreds and as many as 2,000-3,000 Panamanian civilians and 23 U.S. troops were killed.
In the last week Trump has referred to Canada as the 51st state and its Prime Minister as "Governor," has discussed a "soft invasion" into Mexico, and is now discussing taking over Panama. These are the rantings of an aspiring autocrat & should be taken seriously—because he isn't joking.
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@qasimrashid.com) December 22, 2024 at 4:23 PM
Right-wing Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino responded to Trump's threat on social media Sunday, saying, "Every square meter of the Panama Canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue to."
To which Trump replied, "We'll see about that!"
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The Panama Canal and the Mistreated Treaties
On December 22, 2024, the elected president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced that he would demand that Panama "give him back the canal."
Dec 23, 2024
Washington, D.C. January 22, 1903—Secretary of State John Hay and the Colombian commercial attaché in the United States, Tomás Herrán, signed the treaty that would give the United States the right to resume construction of the Panama Canal that the French had abandoned when they were almost halfway done. Colombia would agree to cede a strip of land on its isthmus to the United States for 100 years in exchange for ten million in a single payment and $250,000 per year. A few miles off the coast of Panama, the warship Wisconsin remains stranded to provide moral support for the negotiations.
Congress in Washington immediately approved the treaty, but it was rejected in Bogotá. There were doubts about sovereignty and about the benefits derived from this agreement. Mathematics, also practiced in that country, said that it would take the Colombian people 120 years to receive the same compensation that had been offered to be paid in one lump sum to the New Panama Canal Co.
On April 15, the United States envoy, Mr. Beaupre, sent a telegram to the secretary of state about the mood of the Colombian people: “There is at least one clear fact. If the treaty were put to the free consideration of the people, it would not be approved.” The Colombian Senate voted unanimously against its ratification.
Without ever having set foot outside his country, on August 27, President Theo Roosevelt wrote three letters describing the Colombians as “ignorant,” “greedy,” “despicable little men,” and “corrupting idiots and murderers.” Also, “I could never respect a country full of that kind of people… Trying to deal with Colombia as one deals with Switzerland, Belgium, or Holland is simply absurd.” Days later, he sends some packages with dollars to organize a revolt that will be called Revolution.
Problem solved. On November 18, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty was signed in Washington, by which “the United States guarantees the freedom of Panama” in exchange for Panama ceding authority and all rights over the canal, free of any tax. As usual, the Panamanians were not invited to sign the new treaty. The $250,000 annually previously offered to Colombia would not be paid until a decade after the canal’s opening. There is nothing like having a powerful navy to do good business. The previous Treaty of Peace and Commerce signed by Colombia and the United States in 1846 was also violated. As in Cuba, as in Puerto Rico, article, now article 136 assured Washington the power to intervene in any inconvenient situation. Still, rebellions are symbolic. Washington has decreed that citizens of that country cannot acquire weapons. Imperial practice is old: Treaties are signed so the weak will comply.
In the United States, voices are raised against what several congressmen call dishonesty and imperialism. Sen. Edward Carmack protests, “The idea of a revolution in Panama is a crude lie; the only man who took up arms was our president.” Sen. George Frisbie Hoar, a member of the commission investigating the war crimes that will go unpunished in the Philippines, rejects the versions about the Revolution in Panama and adds, “I hope not to live long enough to see the day when the interests of my country are put above its honor.”
Of course, this matter of honor can be fixed. The president resorts to the old resource of “we were attacked first.” As President James Polk did to justify the invasion of Mexico in 1846 or President William McKinley to occupy Cuba in 1898, Roosevelt invents a story about threats to the security of certain American citizens in the area. Like Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, when he denied in front of television cameras any involvement in the military coup in Chile in 1973, Roosevelt assured Congress and the public that Washington was not involved in the Revolution in Panama. On December 6, 1904, he gave a speech before Congress on the need to once again expand the Monroe Doctrine “to see our neighbors stable, orderly, and prosperous.” Otherwise, “intervention by a civilized nation will be necessary… The United States must, whether it wants to or not, intervene to solve any serious problem by exercising the power of international police.”
In 1906, Roosevelt visited the construction sites in Panama. He would be the first American president to dare to leave his country. On board, the USS Louisiana, Roosevelt wrote to his son Kermit, “With admirable energy, men, and machines work together; the whites supervise the construction sites and operate the machines while tens of thousands of blacks do the hard work where it is not worth the trouble to use machines.”
Despite the hard work of Panamanians, they are portrayed as lazy. Journalist Richard Harding Davis had already echoed the sentiment of the time: “[Panama] has fertile lands, iron, and gold, but it has been cursed by God with lazy people and corrupt men who govern it… These people are a menace and an insult to civilization.”
In 1909, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, based on Roosevelt’s boastful statements to a class at a California university, investigated “the unilateral decision of a former president to take Panama from the Republic of Colombia without consulting Congress.” Considering Colombia’s requests to The Hague, the commission will question different protagonists. On November 6, 1903, three days after the revolution in Panama, the State Department sent a cable to its consul in Colombia informing that “the people of Panama, apparently unanimously, have resolved to dissolve their ties with the Republic of Colombia.”
Congressman Henry Thomas Rainey reads the cable from Washington in Congress. Rainey clarifies: “I do not believe any of this is true… When the Revolution occurred, only 10 or 12 rebels knew of the plans, apart from the Panama Railroad and Steamship Co. managers.”
It would be necessary to wait until 1977 when President Jimmy Carter’s government signed an agreement that the United States would return the canal to Central American country on the last day of 1999, three years before the mandatory rental period expired. A year earlier, at an event in Texas, the former governor of California and future president, Ronald Reagan, would declare: “It does not matter which ram dictator is in power in Panama. We built it! We paid for the canal! It’s ours, and we’re going to keep it.”
Omar Torrijos will be the dictator Reagan alluded to. Torrijos will claim sovereignty over the canal and will die, like other rebel leaders from the south, in a plane crash.
Imperialism is a disease that not only kills those who resist it but also does not let those who carry it inside live.
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