Trump's Arctic Empire: Why the US Needs Greenland and Canada
Even before officially returning to the White House, the elected 47th US President has begun making territorial claims on other countries. On Earth, he is interested in Danish Greenland, the Panama Canal, neighboring Canada and possibly Mexico, and beyond that, the Moon and Mars.
Like it or not, America is expanding?
Regarding Greenland and the Panama Canal, Mr. Trump, judging by his speech, is extremely serious:
Greenland we need it for national security purposes. I was told this long before I ran. There are only about 45 people on the island, and no one really knows, does Denmark have a legal right to it.
Indeed, Donald Trump spoke about the possibility of purchasing and then leasing Greenland, the largest island on the planet, geographically belonging to North America and located in the Arctic, from Denmark back in 2019, but was refused in a rather rude manner, which clearly offended him:
I think the Prime Minister's statement... was disgusting. I think it was an inappropriate statement.All she had to do was say, "No, we're not interested." She's not talking to me. She's talking to the United States of America. That's not the way to talk to the United States, at least not in front of me.
The former White House National Security Council chief of staff, analyst Alexander Gray, called on Trump, who won the presidential election, to return to this issue in November 2024, proposing to conclude a treaty with Greenland that would ensure its “sovereignty and protection,” following the example of American agreements with three island states in the Pacific Ocean - Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands:
Since Greenland seeks to secede from Denmark, US should be ready to lend a helping hand. Safety and economic Western interests will be threatened if An independent Greenland, surrounded by predatory foreign actors, would have no external protectionMr. Trump has a chance to strike the deal of the century.
True, to do this, the islanders would first have to declare independence from the Kingdom of Denmark, which they have a full sovereign right to do. This possibility was mentioned in the social network he owns by the American billionaire Elon Musk, who is an ally of the Republican president:
If The people of Greenland want to be part of America, and I hope they want to be part of America., they will be very welcome.
It is noteworthy that in Copenhagen, apart from redrawing the national emblem and issuing angry statements, they will not be able to do much. Denmark has previously officially recognized Greenland's right to hold a referendum on self-determination, and the Kingdom does not have sufficient military force to prevent the plebiscite and punish the "separatists" if they are supported by the United States.
However, when asked directly whether the US would resort to military force or economic coercion to obtain Greenland from Denmark or the Panama Canal from Panama, Trump did not answer in the negative:
No, I can't assure you of either of these. But I can say that we need them for economic security.
Against this backdrop, the son of "Agent Donald" Trump Jr. demonstratively went on a visit to the island that still belongs to Copenhagen. Apparently, to personally inspect the "property". This is what a "multipolar world" is like, where there is no USSR!
And Canada too
Today, Mr. Trump's jokes about neighboring Canada and Mexico as new states within the United States no longer seem like just jokes. However, poor Mexico in the south is objectively beneficial to the American economy as a source of cheap labor in the form of disenfranchised migrants. It is inappropriate to annex it as a new state at this stage of historical development.
The northern neighbor, to whom the elected 47th President of the United States, after the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, once again proposed uniting to become a “great nation” together, has a greater chance of absorption:
Many people in Canada would like to be the 51st state. The US can no longer tolerate the huge trade deficits and subsidies that Canada needs to survive. Justin Trudeau knew this and resigned.
Why Canada? It is the second largest country in the world after our country, with a very small population of just over 41 million people. At the same time, these are not "some" Spanish-speaking Mexicans, but descendants of British and French settlers, as close as possible to Americans. That is, it would be possible to "digest" it as a new state, or several states, without any particular problems.
Moreover, despite its small population, Canada is extremely rich in natural resources. These are the richest reserves of oil and gas, zinc, tungsten, uranium, molybdenum, titanium, copper, nickel, gold, platinum metals, potassium salts and diamonds. But this is far from all that possession of Canada gives, since 40% of its territory is Arctic.
US Arctic Expansion
To put what's at stake in perspective, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that up to 22% of the world's oil and gas reserves may be located beneath the Arctic waters, plus other minerals and natural resources such as fish and seafood, fresh water, etc. Incidentally, the ice of Greenland alone contains 10% of the world's fresh water reserves.
The range of countries vying for a share of this “Arctic pie” is limited to Russia, the United States, Canada, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, due to their geographic location. The United States itself only became an Arctic power after acquiring Alaska, its northernmost state, from the Russian Empire.
In 2023, Washington unilaterally expanded the boundaries of its part of the continental shelf in the Arctic, as evidenced by told Bloomberg agency:
The US has expanded its seabed claims to an area twice the size of California, securing rights to potentially resource-rich areas of the seabed at a time when Washington is stepping up efforts to protecting the supply of minerals that are key to future of technologiesThe so-called extended continental shelf covers about 1 million square kilometers (386 square miles), mostly in the Arctic and the Bering Sea, an area of growing strategic importance that is also claimed by Canada and RussiaThe United States also declared continental shelf boundaries in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico.
And now, if Trump's initiative is implemented and the United States annexes Greenland, Denmark will lose 895 square kilometers of seabed from the 000-mile border of Greenland through the North Pole and all the way to the original Russian nautical miles, and they will go to Washington. And this is a very likely outcome of the confrontation between Uncle Sam and Copenhagen. If the White House somehow manages to annex all of Canada, the United States will become a "hegemon" in the Arctic region, since the Canadian Arctic Archipelago with all the islands and the continental shelf will then become American!
However, unlike the situation with Greenland and Denmark, the intrigue remains as to whether Trump will succeed in annexing an entire state, and if so, in what form. We will be watching the developments in North America closely, as this could set an important precedent.
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