Trump Threatening American Allies is All Downside for the U.S.
The United States gets all it needs from Greenland, Denmark, Canada, and Panama via treaties and good relationships. Undermining that is self-defeating.
Before he’s even in office, Donald Trump is threatening America’s foreign partners. The United States, he says, will buy or take over Greenland (which is officially part of Denmark and doesn’t want to sell), turn Canada into the fifty-first state, and (re)take the Panama Canal.
He’s doing it in the “just joking (or maybe not)” style of internet trolls, which gives the troll an out—“I’m just kidding, lighten up”—while also laying the groundwork for future action if he decides that, actually, he wasn’t kidding. Does he really mean it? And if so, to what extent, intending which actions? Chances are he himself doesn’t know, and hasn’t put much thought into it. But whatever the level of seriousness, it harms U.S. interests.
Nevertheless, a variety of politicians and media rushed to defend the threats, or “sanewash” them by treating them as a coherent policy that must have a smart reason behind it somewhere. Besides the many Republicans who try to paint a rational, intellectual veneer on Trump’s impulses, there’s Democratic Sen. John Fetterman praising the Greenland threats as “smart.” Meanwhile, think tanks put out explainers like “Everything you need to know about Trump’s Greenland gambit,” and newspapers publish reports on public opinion asking, for example, “Do Americans want Trump to acquire Greenland?”—as if it were a normal policy proposal going through normal discussion.
All that misses the point. Whatever Trump’s intentions or lack thereof, threatening allies and partners is stupid and self-defeating. Following up with more verbal threats, economic pressure, or even military force would harm the United States.
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