Putting Donald Trump’s plans for Greenland and the Panama canal into context
There has been a great deal of heat – and not an overabundance of light – when it comes to the media’s reactions to Donald Trump’s renewed interest in acquiring Greenland from Denmark after he resumes the US presidency on January 20. The tone of commentary has very much had a flavour of, “What on earth is Trump on about now?” The president-elect’s refusal this week to rule out using economic or military force if necessary to take control of the world’s biggest island has been met with copious, if predictable, warnings from world leaders about sovereignty and the inviolability of borders.
This is by no means to denigrate the vital importance of sovereignty, the rule of law or the inviolability of national borders. These should go without saying. But asking politicians to rule things out at press conferences is a classic journalistic gambit that almost always draws the answer “no”. It’s a fairly meaningless exercise.
Now, more than ever, it’s vital to be informed about the important issues affecting global stability. Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.
So it’s particularly useful to read this offering by Stefan Wolff, an expert in international security and regular contributor to The Conversation, who provides valuable nuance and context to the debate. First, as Wolff points out, Trump is not the first US president to float the idea of buying Greenland. The idea was first suggested in 1868 (by US secretary of state William H. Seward) and surfaced at reasonably regular intervals thereafter. In 1946 the then US president Harry Truman made a formal offer of US$100 million (US$1 billion or £812 million today).
And there are plenty of reasons why such a deal might make sense for the US, Greenland’s exceptional mineral wealth and strategic location chief among them.
But whether Trump’s diplomatic approach is the most effective way of prosecuting the US case is debatable, warns Wolff. Greenlanders are themselves exploring options for independence from Denmark, for one. And in any case, Denmark – with which Greenland has had a home rule arrangement since 1979 – is a Nato ally. At present, given the geopolitical situation, the most sensible approach is one that does nothing to undermine the alliance. It’s not clear that this is uppermost in Trump’s mind, writes Wolff.
Read more: Trump's Greenland bid is really about control of the Arctic and the coming battle with China
The other (rather smaller but no less strategically vital) bit of land that the US president-elect has his acquisitive eye on is the Panama Canal, which Trump says the US needs for economic security. It’s particularly poignant that the canal should be in the news the week after the death of Jimmy Carter, as Carter was the US president who presided over the 1977 deal which gave Panama ownership of the canal – one of his most significant moves during his time in the White House.
Amalendu Misra, a professor of international politics at Lancaster University, runs through the history of the canal, which was the most expensive US building project when it was completed. Trump asserts that the canal should never have been handed to Panama and claims that is is now “being operated by China”. But as Misra points out, while two of the ports at either end of the canal are operated by Hong Kong-based company Hutchison Whampoa, the canal itself is owned and operated by an independent government agency, the Panama Canal Authority.
Under the terms of Carter’s treaty, the US cannot legally take control of the canal. That’s not to say the US couldn’t take control by force. Those with long enough memories will remember that US forces, under the direction of then-president George H.W. Bush, invaded Panama and deposed President Manuel Noriega in 1990 in what it dubbed “Operation Just Cause”. (Fun fact: to persuade Noriega to surrender and give himself up, US troops blared rock music from a fleet of Humvees non-stop for three days – a form of torture for the Panamanian president, who is said to have been a devotee of opera music.)
But as Misra notes, yet another attempt to intervene with force in Latin America would be likely to severely undermine the US position in a region which could, instead, turn towards China, Russia or Iran for alliances. So while the Trump may not have “ruled out” sending in the marines to occupy the canal, Misra believes this eventuality to be highly unlikely.
Read more: Why Donald Trump is threatening to take control of the Panama Canal
It’s not as if many Latin American countries aren’t already looking towards China, which over the past two decades has “dramatically expanded its role as a top trading partner for Latin America,” writes Jose Caballero. Caballero, a senior economist with the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), says the first Trump term was widely seen as driving many Latin American countries towards China as a more reliable trade and development partner than the US. And things hardly improved under Joe Biden.
Since 2002, writes Caballero, trade between China and the region has risen from US$18 billion to US$500 billion by 2023. And, in the first two months of 2024, China’s exports to Latin America increased by 20.6%. “China is certainly ready to build on its partnerships in the region if, and when, opportunities arise,” Caballero believes.
An “America first” policy and rising tariffs are likely to exacerbate the situation. This will not be helped by Trump’s undeniably clumsy rhetoric (an example of which was the US president-elect’s rather bumptious recent suggestion that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America).
If isolationism becomes the name of the game in a Trump White House and the US seeks to disengage from its network of international ties, China has shown it is more than willing to step in and take its place, writes Caballero.
Read more: With Trump in the White House, China and Latin America may try to forge an even deeper relationship
Double act
It’s hard to say who has been getting more press in recent days: Trump or his close associate, South African-born tech mogul Elon Musk. Certainly both appear to have studied the same playbook when it comes to international diplomacy. And Musk’s intervention in the domestic politics of several European countries must be seen as giving considerable cause for alarm.
While Trump and Musk appear as thick as thieves, there are those who think Washington’s not big enough for the two towering personalities and that a major falling out is all but inevitable. Certainly, writes Thomas Gift, an expert in US politics at UCL, there are signs that Musk is beginning to fall out with others in the Make America Great Again (Maga) crowd.
The problem, Gift believes, is immigration policy: specifically the H1-B visas which the US issues to allow immigrants to work in the US based on speciality talents or skills. This is particularly an issue in the tech industry, where Silicon Valley (and Musk himself) is scooping up talent from countries such as India.
On the other side of the debate are nativists such as Steve Bannon, who was Trump’s ideological alter ego in his first terms. Since emerging from a prison sentence last year in time for the election campaign, Bannon has been attempting to reposition himself as the loudest voice in the president-elect’s ear. He says that the H1-B visa schemes is “a total and complete scam from its top to the bottom”. He and like-minded Maga identities want to train up US-born and educated talent, in line with the general move away from mass migration to the US.
As Gift points out, it’s just one aspect of an increasingly bitter debate over globalisation which may rupture the still close partnership between Trump and his closest “tech bro”.
Read more: Elon Musk and the tech titans v the rest of Maga -- here's where the big splits could happen
World Affairs Briefing from The Conversation UK is available as a weekly email newsletter. Click here to get our updates directly in your inbox.