Donald Trump\u2019s imperialist designs on Greenland, Canada and Panama often sound like the ramblings of a real estate shark who equates foreign and trade policy to a hunt for new deals. <\/p>\n
But there\u2019s method in his expansionist mindset. Trump, in his unique way, is grappling with national security questions the US must face in a new world shaped by China\u2019s rise, the inequalities of globalization, melting polar ice and great power instability. <\/p>\n
His attitude also embodies the \u201cAmerica First\u201d principle of using US strength to relentlessly pursue narrow national interests, even by coercing smaller, allied powers. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s musings about terminating the Panama Canal Treaty especially show the preoccupation of the new administration with the encroachment of foreign powers into the Western Hemisphere. This isn\u2019t a new concern \u2014 it\u2019s been a constant thread in American history, dating back to the Monroe Doctrine in the 1820s when European colonialists were the threat. The issue endured through the communist scares of the Cold War. Today\u2019s usurpers are China, Russia and Iran. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s belief, meanwhile, that the United States should rule supreme in its own sphere of influence is also an important hint about how he might manage key global hotspots, including the war in Ukraine and potentially even Taiwan. <\/p>\n
But his 21st century neocolonialism is a huge risk and appears certain to run headlong into international law. And Trump could compromise America\u2019s power by trashing alliances built up over generations and alienating its friends. <\/p>\n
Trump poured fuel on a tense world waiting with trepidation for his second term on Tuesday when a reporter asked him if he could rule out force to seize back the Panama Canal or to take over strategically important Greenland. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to commit to that, no,\u201d Trump said at Mar-a-Lago. \u201cIt might be that you\u2019ll have to do something.\u201d <\/p>\n
Canadians were relieved to learn that the president-elect won\u2019t be sending the 82nd Airborne across the 49th parallel. He said he\u2019d only use economic force to annex the proud sovereign democracy to the north and make it the 51st state. <\/p>\n
As often with Trump, his threats came with a mixture of malice and mischief. And there was a characteristic element of farce as the president-elect\u2019s son, Donald Jr., flew the family\u2019s Boeing to Greenland, with a bobblehead of his father perched on the cockpit control panel. \u201cMake Greenland Great Again!\u201d the president-elect posted on his Truth Social network shortly before his son landed. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s unlikely Trump will get what he wants with Canada, Panama or Greenland. So his strategy might be aimed at getting better deals for the US \u2014 perhaps a discount for American vessels transiting the key waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, greater American access to rare earth minerals in Greenland and sea routes revealed by melting polar ice, as well as a new trade deal with Canada that might advantage US manufacturers. Trump would be sure to portray any of these as a massive win only he could have achieved, even if they end up being rather cosmetic like his first-term US-Mexico-Canada pact. <\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s threats flesh out one of his foreign policy rationales: that each country should aggressively pursue their goals unilaterally in a manner that will inevitably profit strong, rich nations like the United States. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs president, I have rejected the failed approaches of the past, and I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first. That\u2019s okay \u2014 that\u2019s what you should be doing,\u201d Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in 2020. <\/p>\n
This is a doctrine distilled from a life in which Trump has tried to always be the most aggressive person in every room in pursuit of \u201cwins\u201d over weaker opponents. This explains his remark that Denmark should hand over Greenland, a self-governing entity inside its kingdom, because it\u2019s important to US security. If not, Trump said, \u201cI would tariff Denmark at a very high level.\u201d <\/p>\n
The president-elect also characterized the US decision to hand over the Panama Canal in 1999 under a treaty signed by Jimmy Carter as folly that squandered the advantages of US power. He claimed falsely that American ships were discriminated against in transit fees and that China, not Panama, was operating the waterway. (Beijing-owned firms do run some ports in Panama). \u201cWe gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn\u2019t give it to China, and they\u2019ve abused it,\u201d Trump said just before Carter\u2019s body arrived in Washington before Thursday\u2019s state funeral. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s tough-guy approach also explains why he sees little distinction between US allies and adversaries. He, for example, complained Tuesday that Canada, America\u2019s closest geographical friend, was freeloading off the US defense umbrella and therefore should be a state rather than a nation. Such a view repudiates the US-led liberal order that sees alliances as investments that multiply American power and protect democracy and freedom. <\/p>\n
Sending troops to grab the Panama Canal or Greenland might contradict Trump\u2019s campaign trail warnings that the US should avoid new foreign entanglements. But it exemplifies the \u201cAmerica First\u201d ideology. A retreat from the old world in a Trump second term could be be replaced by \u201ccontinentalism\u201d that might \u201cdisplace globalism,\u201d argued Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Foreign Affairs last May. <\/p>\n
This would update the doctrine unveiled by President James Monroe in 1823, to which President Theodore Roosevelt later added a corollary \u2014 that the United States should protect life and property in Latin American countries. <\/p>\n
While Trump has set off global consternation with his new Panama Canal rhetoric, he first broached a tougher line in America\u2019s backyard in his first term. \u201cHere in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers,\u201d Trump told the UN General Assembly in 2018. \u201cIt has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.\u201d <\/p>\n
His policy represented a split with the Obama administration that is consistent with Trump\u2019s backlash politics. In 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry told the Organization of American States, \u201cThe era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.\u201d <\/p>\n
The 21st century Monroe reboot targets China, Russia, Iran and their business, military and intelligence partnerships in nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba. <\/p>\n
Marco Rubio \u2014 a surprising pick for Trump\u2019s secretary of state given his traditionalist foreign policy leanings \u2014 is on the same page as his new boss on hemispheric affairs. The Florida senator said at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2022 that China was wielding economic influence in a way that hurt regional economies and boosted cartels that export fentanyl and violence across US borders. \u201cThey do this because they know that chaos in Latin America and the Caribbean would severely hurt us, destabilize us, who they view as their primary and central rival,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cWe simply can\u2019t afford to let the Chinese Communist Party expand its influence and absorb Latin America and the Caribbean into its private political-economic bloc.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s expansionist vision reflects supreme confidence heading into his second term, which he\u2019s determined to use to leave an era-defining mark on America\u2019s global role. <\/p>\n
And his personification of the principle of the strong triumphing over the weak might also inform his approach to other global issues \u2014 most notably the war in Ukraine. In a striking moment Tuesday, Trump said he understood Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s fear that the nation he invaded could join NATO. \u201cRussia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that,\u201d the president-elect said. <\/p>\n
The possibility that Trump could accept Russia\u2019s terms was already a concern. His former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, recorded one moment when Putin drew an analogy between his illegal claims to Ukraine and historic US concerns about its hemisphere. \u201cPutin used his time with Trump to launch a sophisticated and sustained campaign to manipulate him,\u201d McMaster wrote in his book \u201cAt War with Ourselves.\u201d He added: \u201cto suggest moral equivalence between U.S. interventions in Latin America and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin cited the \u2018Roosevelt Corollary\u2019 to the Monroe Doctrine.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s bombast may delight his supporters. But many foreigners think it\u2019s arrogant. An attempt to seize the Panama Canal would be regarded as geopolitical piracy. Invading Greenland would make a mockery of international law. <\/p>\n
And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau \u2014 whose already doomed career suffered a final blow because of Trump\u2019s tariff threats \u2014 lampooned Trump\u2019s designs on the Great White North on Tuesday. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a snowball\u2019s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,\u201d he wrote on X. <\/p>\n
This reaction shows the downside of Trump\u2019s approach. His bullying of America\u2019s friends may alienate whole populations. Some foreign policy experts fear American threats and pressure in Latin America may actually push nations closer to China. <\/p>\n
And insults about Canada being better off as the 51st state are likely to harden public opinion there against the incoming US president and make it harder for the next prime minister to clinch deals with him. <\/p>\n
\u201cGreenland is not MAGA. Greenland is not going to be MAGA.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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