Trump says he won't rule out military force to try to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland

Trump made the comments on Greenland and the Panama Canal during a press conference held at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida club.

Transcript

00:00U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he would not rule out the use of military force

00:08to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.

00:13Pressed on the issue by reporters at a news conference, he said U.S. control of both to

00:18be vital to American national security.

00:21What is the strategy?

00:22I can't assure you.

00:23You're talking about Panama and Greenland.

00:25No, I can't assure you on either of those two.

00:28But I can say this.

00:30We need them for economic security.

00:33The Panama Canal was built for our military.

00:37I'm not going to commit to that now.

00:39It might be that you'll have to do something.

00:43He added that Denmark should give up Greenland voluntarily while also threatening tariffs.

00:50People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it.

00:55But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.

00:58That's for the free world.

00:59I'm talking about protecting the free world.

01:01And if Denmark wants to get to a conclusion, but nobody knows if they even have any right

01:07title or interest.

01:08The people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States.

01:13But if they did, if they did do that, then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.

01:18Trump has also floated having Canada join the United States, but he said he would not

01:23use military force to do that, saying he would rely on economic force.

01:28During the press conference, Trump further talked about renaming the Gulf of Mexico as

01:32the Gulf of America and vowed to reverse Biden's move to ban offshore energy drilling in most

01:38federal waters.