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Trump wants Greenland and the Panama Canal: What are the real objectives behind it?

2024-12-23 23:55:48Fokus SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Trump wants Greenland and the Panama Canal: What are the real objectives behind
Trump wants Greenland and the Panama Canal: What are the real objectives behind it?

The future president of the United States reiterated the proposal to buy Greenland, already presented in 2019, and threatened Panama: Electoral "promises"? No. Here's what it's all about

Donald Trump wants Greenland and would like to take back the Panama Canal. They seem like common statements to attract attention during the election campaign. But the campaign is over and he won the election. So, to understand them, we need to move to the second register of the Trumpian mentality: That of foreign policy as a deal.

The Panama case

The case of Panama is quite clear: Trump accuses the Panamanians of applying very high tariffs to American ships transiting through the canal and threatens to demand the return of this giant infrastructure under US control if the Central American government does not accept his demands.

Legally, it is not clear how this could be done. The canal, previously effectively “co-owned” by the United States, came under the total control of Panama with a treaty signed in 1970 by the two countries.

But America is big and powerful, and if he managed in his first term to force Mexico and Canada to cancel NAFTA, a free trade agreement that he considered unfavorable to the US, replacing it with an agreement that penalizes its neighbors much more, why not try using some arrogance with the small country of Panama?

Furthermore, Panama is politically weak and economically highly dependent on the United States.

The purchase of Greenland

Even in the case of Greenland, Trump's outburst is less improvised than it might seem. When he appointed his new ambassador to Denmark, he said he would like to buy the giant Great North Island that belongs to this small and remote European country.

Nothing new: Trump had made the same request during his first term and, faced with Danish denial (“the island is not for sale”), he canceled his presidential visit to Copenhagen.

And it's not a story that starts with Trump.

Since 1867, the United States has tried several times to buy Greenland, the world's largest island that is not a continent. A territory that is geographically part of North America, but its small population (56,000 inhabitants) has historical ties to Europe.

The island has broad autonomy of governance, but depends on the financial resources of Denmark and, above all, the European Union, for its survival and infrastructure investments.

It doesn't take much to understand Trump's interest. In addition to its geostrategic location in the Arctic, facing Russian Siberia, Greenland is rich in gold, silver, copper and uranium, and its offshore platform is believed to hide giant oil resources.

Resources that have so far been very underutilized due to lack of infrastructure and environmental concerns, given that rising temperatures are already bringing catastrophic consequences to the Arctic areas, but as is known, Donald Trump has no interest in the effects of global warming.

And don't bother if the oceans then swallow the coasts and climate change troubles the planet.

Speaking of Greenland and also of Panama, another factor must be kept in mind: China (also a major climate destroyer due to its rapid industrial development).

With its planetary ambitions, Beijing, which is investing massively in Latin America and Africa and has also built several bridges in Europe, has been trying for some time to look at the Arctic: for its mineral resources and because, with the melting of the ice, it becomes a new trade route.

China has already tried to get in on the Greenland game by offering investment plans on the island. Moreover, being the "factory of the world" with ships transporting its exports everywhere on the planet, it is likely that the Asian giant, increasingly present in Central America, will also try to exert its influence in Panama./ Corriere della Sera


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