Over the past month, President-elect Donald Trump has proposed annexing Greenland, admitting Canada to the American union, and reassuming control of the Panama Canal. To some, these proposals are jarring or confusing, and the left-wing media is only too happy to frame Trump — per usual — as a power-hungry, wannabe dictator. To find the truth, we must dig deeper.

Threats

When Donald Trump takes the oath of office on January 20, he will inherit a more dangerous world than he did in 2017. Not only are America’s adversaries more aggressive, but President Joe Biden has retreated from many of Trump’s foreign policy successes, leaving America weaker on the world stage.

Eight years ago, the only pressing threat was ISIS, which the Trump administration dismantled in 18 months. Today, Russia is in a hot war with a European democracy, China and North Korea are stronger and more belligerent than ever, and Iran is likely to develop a nuclear weapon at any time.

Meanwhile, America has fumbled its dominance in Afghanistan and the Red Sea, seen its military dwindle due to stupid social crusades, renounced the energy independence of 2019, and — from Trump’s perspective, at least — failed to benefit from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada [trade] Agreement (USMCA) that replaced NAFTA in 2020.

Now, as Trump thinks seriously about overcoming these challenges, he is proposing bold and creative solutions. But not every utterance of Trump’s public brainstorming session is wise, likely, or final. “What the president is doing is thinking long-term about our safety and security here in the United States,” explained Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) on “Washington Watch” Wednesday.

Some of the criticism directed at Trump’s suggestions is due to a failure by the mainstream media and others to see how different policy issues are interconnected. Progressivism tends to rely too heavily on narrowly defined siloes of expertise. The Biden administration, in particular, often erred by failing to recognize how its decision in one area would have negative consequences somewhere else.

Canada

At least chronologically, Trump’s current train of thought seems to begin with ruminations on how to achieve his objectives on immigration and trade policy (his favorites). Trump was looking for a way to cajole Canada and Mexico into taking more responsibility for border security, as well as address what he perceives as a trade deficit with America’s northern and southern neighbors.

In November, Trump threatened to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico unless they stopped the cross-border traffic of drugs and migrants. Although dwarfed by southern border crossings, America’s porous northern border has still seen an unprecedented number of crossings under the Biden administration. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol recorded nearly 190,000 migrant encounters at the northern border in fiscal year (FY) 2023 and nearly 200,000 migrant encounters in FY2024.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford responded by warning that Canada would retaliate against the proposed tariffs by cutting off energy exports to the northern U.S. “We will go to the extent of cutting off their energy going down to Michigan, going down to New York State and over to Wisconsin,” he declared in December.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has more experience dealing with Trump, chose to avoid a confrontational standoff. Instead, he traveled to Mar-a-Lago to placate Trump and find out what Trump really wanted from the negotiations.

The visit was disastrous. At first, Trump described it as “a very productive meeting,” but he soon raised the temperature, publicly trolling Trudeau and openly contemplating the possibility of turning Canada into America’s “51st state.” Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet on December 16 over disagreements about how to handle Trump’s threatened tariffs, disagreements which continued to simmer within Canada’s governing Liberal Party. On Monday, January 6, Trudeau himself resigned as leader of the Liberal Party “due to internal battles.” Trudeau likely never suspected that his visit to Mar-a-Lago would end his political career.

As for making Canada the 51st state, both Canada and Congress would have to agree. Canadians may object to losing their public benefits, exchanging their parliamentary system for the American division of power, or combining their 10 separate provinces into one state.

For their part, U.S. representatives would likely balk at admitting a state with a population slightly larger than California, which would take approximately 50 seats from other states through reapportionment (the U.S. House is capped at 435 members). Democrats would be reluctant to follow Trump’s lead, while Republicans would be nervous that Canada’s progressive tendencies would swing the balance of power to the Left.

It’s difficult to see how Trump’s threat to use “economic force” (a.k.a. tariffs) against Canada would overcome these systemic obstacles. Although he will have no personal role in preventing it, Trudeau said there is “not a snowball’s chance in hell” Canada will join the U.S.A., and he’s probably right.

However, it is possible that the U.S. and Canada — who already share defensive and economic treaties — can reach new agreements to bring the two nations closer together, and this may be Trump’s real goal. “Trump is a negotiator, and he’s a disrupter. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that his negotiating style is very disruptive,” Ricketts pointed out. “Trump is certainly not going to give up anything in his hand before the negotiations have even begun.”

One possible Trump objective is to make Canada meet its defense spending obligation as part of NATO. “The president knows that Russia and increasingly China have been involved in the Arctic, and that we need to secure that northern flank,” said Ricketts. “Also, he knows that Canada has not been pulling its weight with regard to its defense spending. I think last year it spent 1.3% of its GDP on its defense, when it’s supposed to be spending 2%.”

Greenland

Trump’s interest in Greenland also flows from his concern about U.S. national security to attacks from the north. Earlier this week, Trump expressed an interest in the U.S. acquiring Greenland as well. “I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump said Monday on Truth Social. “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our nation. … Make Greenland Great Again!” Donald Trump, Jr. flew to Greenland Tuesday to emphasize this point.

Greenland enjoys a strategic location on the Arctic Ocean and has large deposits of minerals such as cobalt, copper, and nickel. “It would be a way for us to help secure the northeast United States by making sure we would be able to put up our military bases there,” Ricketts explained.

The U.S. currently operates one airbase in northwest Greenland, but that may not be enough to counter a growing Chinese presence.

“We should be very concerned about what the Chinese are doing in the Arctic,” Ricketts added. There are “Chinese ships that are there that are dual purpose. They’re supposed to be doing research, but we know that there’s nothing in the Chinese Navy that … is just purely civilian. … They’ve all got [a] dual purpose. They all report to the same dictator who tells them what to do.”

After Trump’s comments, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (Denmark owns Greenland) responded that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and that “Greenland is not for sale.” But Ricketts noted that “the negotiations for Greenland … haven’t even started yet.”

The proposal to furnish Greenland is probably the Trump proposal that seems furthest afield for many Americans. This proposal neither featured in his campaign nor expresses a deep-seated desire of ordinary citizens. In fairness to Trump, however, it is not unprecedented; the U.S. occupied the island during World War II to preempt a Nazi invasion after the Danish government capitulated, and President Truman made a secret offer to buy the island in 1947.

It seems that America’s interest in Greenland is primarily related to security, and leasing more military bases may be satisfactory alternative to outright purchasing the land.

Panama

Going from north to south, on December 22, Trump set his sights on the Panama Canal, complaining that “The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, highly unfair.”

Trump’s concern about Panama is also related to security. “In the event of a conflict with Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China, we’re going to have problems because … one Chinese company owns a port on both ends of that canal,” Ricketts explained. “And you bet that they will try to shut that down if there’s a conflict and harm us from being able to respond to anything going on in the Pacific.”

The U.S. finished construction of the Panama Canal in 1914 to more quickly move naval assets from the East Coast to the West Coast. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty to surrender control of the canal to Panama, a process which was completed in 1999. “On the Panama Canal, we should have never given that back to Panama,” declared Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “We should have retained control of that.”

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino responded that “every square metre” of the canal belongs to Panama, and that the country’s sovereignty and independence were not negotiable.

Trump has tussled with Panama before. In 2018, during his first term in office, a legal dispute resulted in Panamanian authorities forcibly seizing a 70-story Trump hotel in Panama City. How Panama and Trump might resolve this most recent dispute is not clear.

Doubling Down

During a Tuesday press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump made comments that his critics will distort to monger fear. When asked whether he would rule out the use of military force in relation to Greenland and Panama, Trump responded, “I’m not going to commit to that. It might be that you’ll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country. We need Greenland for national security purposes.”

It’s not difficult to imagine how a skeptical media will use this statement as evidence that Trump is about to embark upon wars of conquest. But there is a far more reasonable interpretation.

Trump stated that controlling Greenland and Panama is vital to U.S. national security. This remark surely anticipates a possible confrontation with China or Russia that spans the globe, not an isolated squabble with either country. In the event of a war with, say, China, neither Panama nor Denmark could defend themselves against a Chinese invasion, which would then use their territory as a forward base for launching attacks against the U.S. homeland.

In such a situation, a U.S. president would be forced to choose between allowing China to set up shop in Panama and Greenland to attack our homeland, or preemptively occupying these strategic chokepoints ourselves — as the U.S. did with Greenland during World War II.

This wartime scenario is the likeliest interpretation for Trump’s statement, “It might be that you’ll have to do something.” Trump is prudently keeping his options open. The breaking news here is not that Trump is about to embark upon a crusade against smaller nations who share our hemisphere, but that America is about to once again have a president who recognizes the dangerous world we find ourselves in and is willing to do whatever is necessary to keep Americans safe.