Why does Trump want Greenland and the Panama Canal?

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe interviewed Dr. Darren Reid, Senior Lecturer in American History at Coventry University

Transcript

00:00Mr. Trump's comments were not confined to Greenland. He also wants to retake control of the Panama Canal

00:06and floated the idea of turning Canada into a U.S. state.

00:10Darren Reed is an American foreign policy expert at Coventry University.

00:14Darren, welcome, good to see you, and forgive my schoolboy history, but Trump isn't the first U.S.

00:21president to express territorial ambitions over Greenland or Panama. U.S. foreign policy does have

00:27some form on this doesn't it? Absolutely, I mean U.S. foreign policy has historically been very

00:33aggressive. We go back to, for example, the annexation of Hawaii, Texas, for example. The

00:39country is built on a lot of expansion into territory that hasn't belonged to it, but this

00:45is relatively new in the modern era. We can go back to, for example, 1989 and the U.S. invasion of

00:50Panama, which was to support a coup to overthrow the government there. We saw lots of other actions

00:55in Latin America where U.S. foreign policy has historically been very aggressive, but that part

01:01of the world, direct intervention in the Americas, really has died down since the turn of the century,

01:06since the start of the 2000s, and to see that return is really, really unique, and this specific

01:12interest in Greenland and the aggressive approach that's being taken towards it in terms of the

01:17rhetoric that's being used, that is really something that's quite new, I think. Okay, well let's talk

01:23about who's briefing Mr. Trump on this. I mean, is this Elon Musk's influence causing difficulties,

01:29given his recent interventions in European politics? And I wonder, once Mr. Trump is in office,

01:35whether that will continue? It's difficult to say where Elon Musk's influence starts and ends.

01:44I think Trump has many advisors around him. I think there's a degree of consistency to a lot

01:49of the things he's said since he relaunched his campaign, so I'm not entirely surprised to see this.

01:54He's certainly taken a very business-focused approach. He's putting a lot of uncertainty out

01:58into the marketplace of the world. He's talking about using military force against his own allies,

02:04for example. I think this is designed to create uncertainty. I think that's designed to throw

02:10potential opponents off balance. I don't think that's necessarily likely to happen. I don't think

02:16this is Elon Musk's influence per se. I think Trump has a broad number of advisors around him,

02:21who've collectively helped him to forge a vision for what his second term is going to look like.

02:26And I think a very proactive and very, very aggressive business-like approach to foreign

02:32negotiations and foreign policies is at the heart of what Trump is doing. He intends to prove to the

02:36world that he is the tough negotiator he has always promised us that he was. So how much of Mr. Trump's

02:43rhetoric is bluster and how much is this going to be policy? How much of this should be taken

02:50seriously? I think most of it's probably bluster, but do we really want to test the limits of that?

02:59I mean, that's the thing when you have a superpower in the world, like China or the United States,

03:03for example. If you push the limits, then the consequences for the people who push them could

03:08be really quite catastrophic. So it's almost immaterial whether it's bluster or not. The

03:13question is, does the international community believe it or believe it's a viable threat?

03:18I don't for one minute think that the military will ever be used to capture or annex Greenland,

03:22for example. But, and Trump has said this himself, the issuing of punitive tariffs upon Finland

03:29is a much, much more likely scenario. I could potentially see US troops being deployed in

03:36Latin America, in Panama. There's always been that sort of power imbalance between the two

03:40halves of the continent. And I think US foreign policy, which Trump has clearly been influenced

03:46by from the 1980s, from the 1970s, creates a lot of precedent for US military intervention in that

03:52region. So it wouldn't surprise me if Trump did deploy troops to the Panama region, but I don't

03:57think they would be deployed in Greenland. I think that would be economic pressure. And I think for

04:01most of his aims, and he said this himself, the most beautiful word in the dictionary he said was

04:05tariffs. I think it's going to be the execution of significant tariffs. Many of Mr. Trump's

04:11speeches are intended perhaps for a domestic audience. What should the international community

04:18make of this and make of this speech this early? I think one thing the international community

04:26should do is take a step back and look at how the world's changed in the last 10 years.

04:30For example, with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, that set a precedent that significant

04:36powers could, in fact, should break international law and could expand their borders. So while

04:41Russia is trying to push in and expand its borders by annexing or taking or invading territory that

04:46doesn't belong to it, now the United States is looking to increase its sovereignty. It's very

04:51much a tit-for-tat exchange, very reminiscent of certain aspects of the Cold War, the very conflict

04:57that people like Putin or Trump grew up in and were normalized into. So what the international

05:02community really needs to do is take a step back and say, okay, how has the world changed? Why are

05:08significant powers expanding their influence, in fact direct sovereignty over areas? What can be

05:13done? Why are they doing this? What can be done to stop it? Why should it be stopped? These are

05:18the existential questions I think the international community really needs to start to wrestle with,

05:22because the global order is changing, and I think this rhetoric combined with other things

05:27that are happening in the world is evidence of that. Darren, good to see you. Thank you

05:31for that. Darren Reed, the American foreign policy expert at Coventry University.

Category

Transcript

Recommended