Greenland. Panama Canal. Canada. Gaza.
By 
I don’t recall Donald Trump campaigning on acquiring new territories by force. I don’t think it was in Project 2025, either. So it wasn’t clear when he first brought it up whether he was joking (he’s such a card!), whether it was one of those things that floats to his mouth and then is forgotten, or an enduring fixation like tariffs.
There was a time when countries set their sights on another country’s territory and decided to take it by force. That culminated in the first half of the twentieth century, after which countries decided it wasn’t a great way to run international relations.
Donald Trump grew up in the 1950s, when all of the international news was about the recovery and repercussions from that way of doing international relations. A great deal of effort, including from the United States, went into rebuilding Europe and Japan to avoid going back to that. Perhaps he wasn’t paying attention.
The agreement not to take other countries’ territory by force is a foundation of the United Nations and the relative peace of the 80 years since the end of World War II. Vladimir Putin broke that peace by invading Ukraine in February 2022.
Now Trump wants to go the way of Vladimir Putin.
It’s become clear that yes, he really wants Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada to be part of the United States. He has said that we should have some sort of arrangement over Gaza, although that one may be temporary. If we look at what he has said about Gaza, the problem becomes clear. He has not specified a particular role for the United States in Gaza, he won’t rule out military force, he has put forward no specific plans to turn Gaza into Miami Beach. He wants a favorable result without any of the work.
Likewise on the other potential territorial acquisitions. He wants them. He can sorta kinda visualize a future in which they belong to the United States, an idealized future free of the taint that taking those territories would involve, with only good outcomes. The people of Canada WANT to be USians!
Our partnership with Canada makes sense in many ways: NORAD to put our sensors closer to the adversary on the other side of the North Pole; the back-and-forth across the border auto manufacturing to take advantage of the best of both countries; easy tourism and shopping across the borders; access to resources.
The history is kind of fun: Canada decided to stay with the Crown when the other colonies revolted. And, oh yes, some of the French settlers stuck with them. The contretemps of 1812 ended with them burning our White House, but we became friends because that’s the easiest way to share a continent.
Trump’s raving about Canada becoming the 51st state seemed like one of his temporary delusions, but apparently this is one of the persisting delusions. As in the case of Gaza, he hasn’t thought out what annexing a country that spans our northern border and beyond would entail if the people are unwilling. And the people are unwilling.
He would prefer, as with Greenland, that the current owners just turn the keys over to him and thus has berated the leaders of Canada and Denmark in phonecalls. One wonders what his real estate “deals” have looked like. And his lackeys have taken up the cry. The New York Times gives some of the detail (gift link).
This week it’s a lie about fentanyl. Less than 1% of the fentanyl coming into the US is from Canada. Trump, in his continuing inability or unwillingness to understand balance of trade, harps on the money they “owe” us. He will not rule out military force, but he hasn’t thought that out either. He wants, and they must give.
The US military, I suppose, could work out a plan to take over Canada, and we probably would have the force to do it, although it seems to me that for a country that spread out, both the taking and the guerilla fighting afterwards would make for a very unpleasant experience. Canada would fight back, and the people of Chicago, Buffalo, and Detroit might have a hard time with that.
I’ve emphasized the pragmatics, but I’ve always been pleased to live in a country that gets along so well with its neighbors. And it’s seemed to me that the differences between the three countries were, for the most part, a source of joy and interest. It’s good to have friends.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner