President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would not rule out using “military force” to make Greenland and the Panama Canal U.S. territories.
“No, I can't guarantee either of those things,” the president-elect told reporters when asked about the use of military force or economic coercion to gain territory.
“We need Greenland for national security. I've been told that for a long time, long before I ran. I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time. There's about 45,000 people there. . People don't even really know if Denmark has a legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because they need it for national security,” Trump said. He said this at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
He insisted there were Chinese and Russian vessels around the world's largest island and “we will not allow that to happen.”
He criticized former President Jimmy Carter for ceding the Panama Canal during his presidency and said he was concerned about China's control of the waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
