President-elect Donald J. Trump said Tuesday he would not rule out the possibility of using military and economic coercion to force Panama to give up control of a canal built by the United States more than a century ago and to force Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States. .
In a lengthy press conference that lasted an hour, President Trump repeated the threat four times, saying that if the hostages being held by Hamas were not released by Inauguration Day, “all hell will break out in the Middle East.”
“If they don’t come back by the time I take office, there will be all hell in the Middle East,” he told reporters. “And that wouldn’t be good for Hamas, and frankly, it wouldn’t be good for anyone. All hell will break loose. I don’t need to say more, but that is what it is.”
At the press conference, President Trump conveyed all kinds of complaints, grievances, and false claims, from the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to offshore drilling, the criminal case against him, and the size of his election victory, but did not give details.
He did not rule out using military force to retake the Panama Canal, which was returned to Panama under a treaty in the late 1990s, and Greenland, which Trump has said is necessary for U.S. national security.
“You might have to do something,” he said.
Trump’s desire to expand America’s footprint is entirely consistent with his mentality of making everything he controls as big as possible, dating back to a series of acquisitions in the late 1980s. In recent days, President Trump has repeatedly talked about buying Greenland and taking over the Panama Canal.
It’s unclear how serious the president-elect is about some of his comments during the press conference. At one point, he suggested that his administration would rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of the United States.
Trump has often used a similar persona as president to dominate the public narrative with attacks on his enemies and wild, often false claims about his own accomplishments.
Appearing before reporters in what was described as an economic development presentation, President Trump criticized President Biden for banning oil drilling in some waters and attacked a New York judge, calling the special counsel investigating him “out of his mind.” Oversees the criminal case against him.
“They are a sick group and it’s all done to influence the election,” Trump said. “It was all a fight against political opponents. That has never happened in this country. We’ve had that happen in certain countries. “We have experienced that in third-tier countries as well.”
President Trump spoke for over 30 minutes without focusing on any topic before taking questions. Regarding Mr. Biden’s focus on electric vehicles, he said, “I don’t know what an electric car is. “This guy likes electricity.” And he complained about the shower head restricting water flow.
“Rain is something that falls from the sky. And they want no water coming out of the shower,” he said. “Drip, drip, drip appears. So what happens when you take a shower 10 times longer? “No water comes out of the faucet.”
He also returns with a hatred for one of his favorite targets: windmills.
“The windmills are driving the whales crazy,” he said.
The president-elect spoke at length about foreign policy, criticizing Biden’s handling of the war in Ukraine, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the conflict in Israel. He also threatened to stop protecting NATO allies unless they increase the money they spend on their own defense, a fundamental part of the treaty.
At one point he seemed to confirm a recent article in the Financial Times that NATO countries wanted to spend up to 5% of their economic output on defence. This is a significant increase.
He also criticized that Canada should become a U.S. state because of the economic support the U.S. provides to Canada. He said he would not use military force to achieve this, but would use economic power to pressure its American neighbor.
“Why do we support a country with over 200 million people per year?” he told reporters. “Our military has everything else at its disposal. It has to be a country. That’s what I said when Trudeau came down.”
President Trump threatened to use ‘economic power’ to unite Canada and the United States, implying that the United States would reduce its purchases of Canadian products.
He also said that if Denmark does not hand over Greenland to the United States, “we will impose very high tariffs on Denmark.”
At the press conference, President Trump was told that a federal judge had blocked special prosecutor Jack Smith, who was investigating his conduct and handling of classified documents, from releasing the investigative report on January 6.
“So if they are not allowed to issue a report, then so be it,” he said. “Why should he be allowed to write fake reports? It’s just a fake report. “That’s really good news.”
