Trump has had his eye on Greenland for years, and he’s developed a new obsession with retaking the Panama Canal. Lisa Friedman and Minho Kim explain what’s going on.
‘Make Greenland Great Again’
US President-elect Donald Trump’s attention returned this week to an idea that has fascinated him for years: acquiring Greenland for the United States. In a news conference on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT), he refused to rule out using military or economic force to take the territory from Denmark, a US ally.
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said, arguing that Denmark should give it up to “protect the free world”. He threatened to impose tariffs on Denmark if it did not.
Earlier in the day, Trump wrote on social media that the potential American acquisition of the Arctic territory “is a deal that must happen” and uploaded photos of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, who was visiting Greenland.
“MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN,” the president-elect added.
After the news conference, Denmark sharply rebuked the proposal, saying that the world’s largest island is not for sale.
During his first term, Trump urged his aides to explore ways to purchase Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory known for its natural resources and strategic location for new shipping routes that can open up as the Arctic ice melts.
Greenland’s vast ice sheets and glaciers are quickly retreating as the Earth warms through accelerating climate change. That melting of ice could allow drilling for oil and mining for minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt. Those mineral resources are essential to rapidly growing industries that make wind turbines, transmission lines, batteries and electric vehicles.
In 2023, the Danish government published a report that detailed Greenland’s potential as a rich deposit of valuable minerals. The Arctic island has “favourable conditions for the formations of ore deposition, including many of the critical raw minerals”.
The melting ice in the Arctic is also opening up a new strategic asset in geopolitics: shorter and more efficient shipping routes. Navigating through the Arctic Sea from Western Europe to East Asia, for example, is about 40% shorter compared to sailing through the Suez Canal. Ship traffic in the Arctic has already surged 37% over the past decade, according to a recent Arctic Council report.
China has shown significant interest in a new route through the Arctic, and in November, China and Russia agreed to work together to develop Arctic shipping routes.
Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax”. But one of his former national security advisers, Robert C. O’Brien, suggested that its consequences are one of the reasons that Trump is interested in making Greenland a US territory.
“Greenland is a highway from the Arctic all the way to North America, to the United States,” he told Fox News. “It’s strategically very important to the Arctic, which is going to be the critical battleground of the future because as the climate gets warmer, the Arctic is going to be a pathway that maybe cuts down on the usage of the Panama Canal.”
Canal clash
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday refused to rule out using military force to retake the Panama Canal, which was returned by the US to that country’s control decades ago.
Last month, Trump falsely accused Panama of allowing Chinese soldiers to control the vital shipping route, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and of overcharging US ships.
He has also claimed Panama charges US vessels “exorbitant prices”, and warned that if they are not reduced after he takes office next month, he will demand that the United States be granted control of the canal “in full, quickly and without question”.
While it is unclear what prompted Trump’s recent obsession with the Panama Canal, some Republicans have long objected to a decades-old treaty that turned the shipping lane over to Panamanian control. When Ronald Reagan ran for president, he said the people of the United States were the canal’s “rightful owners” and brought audiences to their feet with the line, “We bought it; we paid for it; we built it.”
Who owns the Panama Canal?
After a failed attempt by the French to construct a canal, it was ultimately built by the US between 1904 and 1914. And the US government managed the canal for several decades.
The US also played a role in the creation of the state of Panama. At the beginning of the 20th century, the isthmus of Panama was part of Colombia. When Colombia rejected a proposed canal treaty, the US government encouraged a rebellion. Colombia’s northern provinces eagerly seceded, forming the Republic of Panama. The US Navy then kept Colombian troops from suppressing the rebellion.
US control of the canal created significant tensions with Panama. In 1964, anti-American riots broke out in the US-controlled canal zone.
The riots led to the renegotiation of the Panama Canal treaties. In 1977, US President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Efraín Torrijos signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. The agreements guaranteed the permanent neutrality of the Panama Canal. After a period of joint custody, the treaties called for the United States to relinquish control over the canal by the year 2000.
Panama took full control in 1999 and has since operated the canal through the Panama Canal Authority.
Carter, who died last month, always considered the treaties to be signature achievements, and they figured prominently in his obituary.
“Through a bizarre accident of timing, we now have one president fantasising about taking back the canal at just the time the world recognises the canal transfer as an important part of a late president’s legacy,” said James Fallows, who was Carter’s speechwriter at the time and accompanied the president on that 1978 trip to Panama.
How has Panama responded?
In a statement of rebuke to Trump last month, President José Raúl Mulino of Panama wrote that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belong to PANAMA”.
Mulino also said US vessels are not being overcharged. Rates being charged to ships and naval vessels, he insisted, are “not on a whim”.
Panamanian officials said all countries are subject to the same fees, though they would differ based on ship size. They are established in public meetings by the Panama Canal Authority and take into account market conditions, international competition, and operating and maintenance costs, Mulino said.
Rates have gone up recently, however. That’s because starting in 2023, Panama experienced severe drought, driven by a combination of El Nino and climate change. With water levels at Gatun Lake, the principal hydrological reserve for the canal, at historically low levels, authorities reduced shipping through the canal to conserve the lake’s water.
A Trump spokesperson said that because the United States is the biggest user of the canal, the increase in fees hits its ships the most.
What is China’s role in the Panama Canal?
Chinese soldiers are not, as Trump has claimed, “operating” the Panama Canal.
“There are no Chinese soldiers in the canal, for the love of God,” Mulino said in a speech on Thursday. “The world is free to visit the canal.”
A Hong Kong-based firm, CK Hutchison Holdings, does manage two ports at the canal’s entrances. And some experts have said that does raise valid competitive and security concerns for the US.
Ryan C. Berg, the director of the Americas programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank, noted that CK Hutchison would likely have data on all ships coming through the Panama Canal. China has been using its shipping and maritime operations to gather foreign intelligence and conduct espionage.
“China exercises, or could exercise, a certain element of control even absent some military conflagration,” Berg said. “I think there is reason to be worried.”
Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Tuesday that China “will as always respect Panama’s sovereignty” over the Panama Canal.
China is the second-largest user of the Panama Canal after the US. In 2017, Panama cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognised the island as part of China, a major win for Beijing.
Can the United States reassert control?
Not easily.
Mulino has made clear the Panama Canal is not for sale. He noted that the treaties established permanent neutrality of the canal, “guaranteeing its open and safe operation for all nations”. And the Senate ratified the Panama Canal treaties in 1978.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, suggested that the provocations were merely part of a negotiating tactic to get rates down.
“You know, I don’t envision American troops going in to retake the canal, but you got to think that someone is out there scratching their head going, ‘Is Donald Trump crazy enough to do something like that?’” Mulvaney said in a TV interview on Tuesday.
Berg said the neutrality agreement made it unlikely that Panama would even be able to grant special rates to the US. And, he noted, Mulino is “incredibly pro-American” and likely eager to help the incoming Trump administration deal with issues like illegal immigration.
“President Mulino is going to be a great ally with the United States,” Berg said. “We should not want this to devolve into some kind of political fight, because we’re going to need President Mulino on a number of other issues.”
But there is, as Trump has threatened, a military option. Trump could as president order an invasion of Panama. Under the terms of its constitution, Panama has no army. But experts dismissed Trump’s threat on Tuesday as empty intimidation.
“If the US wanted to flout international law and act like Vladimir Putin, the US could invade Panama and recover the canal,” said Benjamin Gaden, director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program in Washington. “No one would see it as a legitimate act, and it would bring not only grievous damage to their image, but instability to the canal.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Lisa Friedman and Minho Kim
Photographs by: Charlie Cordero, Getty Images and AFP
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