PALM BEACH, Florida –
US President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he would not rule out using military force to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, declaring that US control of both is vital to US national security.
Speaking to reporters less than two weeks before taking office on Jan. 20 and while a delegation of aides and advisers that includes Donald Trump Jr. is in Greenland, Trump left open the use of the U.S. military to secure both territories. . Trump’s intention marks a rejection of decades of US policy that has prioritized self-determination over territorial expansion.
“I’m not going to commit to that,” Trump said, when asked if he would rule out using the military. “Maybe you have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital for our country.” He added: “We need Greenland for national security reasons.” Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a former ally of the United States and a founding member of NATO.
Trump, a Republican, has also proposed that Canada join the United States, but said he would not use military force to do so, saying he would rely on “economic strength.”
Promising a “golden age of America,” Trump also said he would try to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” and said that has a “beautiful sound.”
Trump also used his news conference to complain that President Joe Biden was undermining his transition to power a day after the incumbent moved to ban offshore energy drilling in most federal waters.
Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, used his authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the east and west coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and parts of the northern Sea. of Bering in Alaska of future oil and natural gas leases. . In total, Biden withdrew about 625 million acres of federal waters from energy exploration in a move that may require an act of Congress to undo.
“I’m going to postpone it from day one,” Trump told reporters. He promised to take it to court “if necessary.”
Trump said Biden’s effort, part of a series of final actions by the Democratic administration in office, was undermining his plans for once he is in office.
“You know, they told me we’re going to do everything we can to make this transition to the new administration very smooth,” Trump said. “It’s not easy.”
But Biden’s team has expanded access and courtesies to Trump’s team that the former Republican president initially denied Biden after his 2020 election victory. Trump’s new chief of staff, Susie Wiles, told Axios in an interview published on Monday that Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, had been “very helpful.”
In extensive comments, Trump also criticized the work of special counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw now-abandoned prosecutions for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and possession of classified documents after he left office in 2021. expects to soon release a report from Smith summarizing his investigation after Trump’s victory in November forced an end to criminal cases.
