TRUMP UNLEASHED: GREENLAND, PANAMA, AND CANADA IN HIS CROSSHAIRS!
Most of us had become used to Donald Trump’s bombastic and provocative rhetoric during his first term in office, and so that he has continued in the same vein at the beginning of his second term will have come as no surprise.
However, he seems to have turned up the dial to eleven when promulgating his new policies of American geographical expansionism, much to the amusement and/or horror of the world.
He had only been back in office for a matter of days before he reprised his previous idea of the USA buying Greenland from Denmark, which of course is a close NATO ally. Unsurprisingly, neither the Danish government not the Greenlanders are much impressed with the idea and have said quite firmly that they are not for sale. But Trump will worry this one like a dog does a bone.
Then came the idea that the USA should take over control of the Panama Canal, citing Chinese influence on its operation. Again this was met with dismay, not least from the Canal’s operators and Panama itself. But this is one which, more than most, could be put into effect. The USA has the political, military, and economic might to do it, and it’s more or less in their backyard.
Next up was Canada, which Trump suggested should become a state within the USA. Most Canadians were not too impressed by this idea and dismissed it. But now we have a tariff war along the mutual border in North America.
And I think we were all left scratching our heads when he decreed that the Gulf of Mexico was henceforth to be known in US official publications as the Gulf of America.
Finally, just when we thought we had heard it all, came the 47th President’s bombshell announcement that the USA should “take over” the Gaza strip. Standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to the White House, Trump said: ‘The US will take over the Gaza Strip… level the site, get rid of destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.’
As part of this latest grand plan the Palestinians who live there would be deported to Egypt and Jordan, either temporarily or permanently depending on who you listen to, and then the USA would move in, level what’s left of it, and rebuild from scratch. The end result would be, Trump said, the creation of “the Riviera of the Middle East”.
Both Egypt and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia for that matter, have rejected Trump’s vision. Yet a US-led Gaza redevelopment proposal does ratchet up pressure on the Arab states who pay lip service to the plight of Palestinians without ever doing much to help them. Will they now suggest a counter-proposal that might be more acceptable to the Muslim world?
Whatever you may think, it’s a bold, if not foolhardy, strategy. But that’s Trump for you, and for many years the US has been engaged in failed democracy-building in the Arab world. Trump, property developer par excellence, appears to be offering resort-building instead.
Who thought that he might have been thinking about such a plan when he promised ‘peace through strength’ on the campaign trail? Could it work? It seems unlikely, given that the forced evacuation of two million plus people from Gaza would be a clear breach of the Geneva Convention. It would, in effect, amount to ethnic cleansing.
But what it has done is provide a political lifeline to Netanyahu, who is under increasing pressure from the more radical members of his coalition to take decisive action. Trump may well have given him some breathing space, albeit it may prove temporary.
If nothing else he has presented a plan, no matter how bonkers it might seem, where no plan currently exists. It might just provoke other and more local players to get serious about how they are going to sort out what is Gaza, its governance, and its people.
Trump has not so much lost the plot as he might be stirring the pot.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
Lt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available now
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