U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise threat to retake control of the Panama Canal and his expansionist declaration that the United States should own Greenland signals that the incoming president will pursue a foreign policy unbound by diplomatic niceties.
As Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20, his aides have been preparing him to deal with two foreign policy crises: war in Ukraine and multiple conflicts in the Middle East, both of which the president-elect has promised to speedily resolve.
But on Sunday, Trump was more focused on making threats against U.S. allies like Panama and Denmark, which controls Greenland as an overseas territory. In previous weeks, it has been Canada which has had to weather his trolling that it should become the 51st state of the United States.
