During a Tuesday press conference from Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald Trump would not rule out military or economic coercion in order to gain control of the Panama Canal or Greenland, two areas that have made headlines in recent weeks after Trump suggested wanting to obtain them.
A reporter asked, "Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not gonna use military or economic coercion?"
Trump responded, "no," later elaborating, "I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this: we need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for a military."
"I’m not gonna commit to that. Now, it might be that you’ll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country. It’s being operated by China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama, we didn’t give it to China, and they’re abused it. They’ve abused that gift."
Trump continued on to talk about late President Jimmy Carter, under whose term treaties were signed to phase out US control of the canal. "Look, he was a great man," Trump said of Carter, later adding, "but it was a big mistake giving the Panama Canal to Panama."
"It cost us the equivalent of a trillion dollars, maybe more than that, probably the most expensive — they say it was the most expensive structure, if we can call it a structure, which I guess you can — ever built."
On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr, Charlie Kirk, and others visited Greenland, coming as Donald Trump has signaled that the US wants to obtain the North Atlantic island. While the country is potentially seeking independence from Denmark, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that the island "is not for sale and will not be in the future either."
