Santiago Pérez, José de Córdoba, and Alex Leary of The Wall Street Journal report that President-elect Donald Trump has provoked some backlash by calling for U.S. control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, citing national security. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino and Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the remarks as threats to sovereignty. Trump’s remarks come as China becomes more involved in the Panama Canal, and control of Arctic waterways becomes increasingly crucial to the future of North American national security. They write:
President-elect Donald Trump is openly discussing provocative aspirations for U.S. territorial expansion as he prepares to return to the White House, warning about taking over the Panama Canal and wresting control of Greenland from Denmark.
His comments, delivered in public remarks and social-media posts on Sunday, come after he recently trolled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state and referring to Trudeau as a governor. During the recent presidential campaign, Trump said he would deploy the U.S. military to impose a naval embargo on Mexican cartels and order the Pentagon to use American special forces to take down cartel leaders. […]
“We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” Trump said at a conservative conference in Phoenix on Sunday, demanding the return of the state-run canal to the U.S. “We will never, never let it fall into the wrong hands.” […]
Short of an invasion, as the U.S. carried out in 1989 to overthrow then-dictator Manuel Noriega, the U.S. government has no ability to restore control of the canal, which the U.S. built more than a century ago.
“Trump believes the U.S. gave away something for nothing,” said John Feeley, who resigned as U.S. ambassador to Panama during Trump’s first term. “For him, it’s yet another example of a country taking advantage of the U.S.” […]
In neighboring Colombia, President Gustavo Petro said he will be on Panama’s side and in defense of its sovereignty “until the very end.”
“If the new U.S. government wants to talk business, we will talk business, face to face, and for the benefit of our people, but dignity will never be negotiated,” Petro wrote on X.
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