Trump’s Vision of Force, Provocation and Colonisation Represents a Global Threat

The Donald Trump who gave a speech on 7 January 2025 at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida ahead of his inauguration appeared a very different president-elect than the one taking office in 2017. And the current self-assurance the incoming head of state is displaying reflects his intimate understanding of US government mechanisms, along with just how far he can stretch the powers he’s about to wield.

The soon-to-be US president reiterated his “drill baby drill” mantra, which involves stepping up fossil fuel extraction and winding back climate-friendly regulations, and the Republican leader further rejected the Democrats’ favoured Green New Deal as a “Green New Scam”. 

Despite over 12 months of campaign rhetoric regarding the implementation of a high tariff regime and a commitment to US domestic manufacturing, Trump commenced his press conference by announcing that he’s opening up the States to a US$20 billion foreign investment deal involving data centres sprinkled across the US Midwest and Sunbelt run by Emirati company DAMAC. 

Trump then unleashed one of signature diatribes, which didn’t comprise of “policy threats” against the nations and peoples of the Global South, as he commenced his last term in office, but rather the incoming president took aim at western allies, as he suggested the US would be annexing Cananda, taking control of Greenland, a Danish autonomous region, as well as reclaiming the Panama Canal. 

And as the president-elect went on to further rail against NATO allies for not footing their bills, it became apparent that in retaking the reins of a declining US empire, Trump’s isolationist tendencies may increasing involve long-term western allies. And as his inauguration draws closer, the content of the president’s recent speech reflects the uncertainty of his coming administration. 

Reclaiming the Panama Canal

“We’re being respected again all over the world,” said Trump, in relation to the supposed effect his election has had on global perceptions, and he didn’t skip a beat in going on to add that he’s aiming to reclaim control of the Panama Canal: the artificial waterway that runs through the Central American nation. The US was completed construction of the canal in 1914.

Trump said that Jimmy Carter’s gifting of the canal to Panama in 1977 was “a terrible thing to do”, as it was the most expensive structure ever built in the history of” the US “relatively,” and the incoming president explained that the construction of the canal, which was initially commenced by France in the late 1800s, would have cost, in his estimate, over US$1 trillion in today’s economy.

The president-elect further suggested that Panama had agreed to treat the US well in its acquisition of the canal, however, he considers that the Central American nation is now overcharging US ships and naval vessels in order to use the waterway, and he further suggested it is the US footing the bill when the structure needs maintenance. 

Rogue state to escalate

“We’re approaching the dawn of America’s golden age,” said the US president-elect. “It’s going to be a golden age for America.”

A journalist then asked Trump a question in regard to the prospect of reclaiming the Panama Canal, as well as reports that the new administration may take control of Greenland, which is currently under the governance of Denmark, as recent comments made by the president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Junior, suggested this was the case. 

“Can you assure the world that, as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?” the journalist asked, to which the president-elect promptly replied that he could not rule out the taking of those territories by force, and he added that the United States needs them both for its “economic security”.

“We need Greenland for national security purposes. I’ve been told that for a long time…. You have approximately 45,000 people there,” Trump continued at his Mar-a-Lago residence on 7 January. “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.”

And while this proposal too sounds unhinged, Trump Junior was in Greenland at the same time his father was making the speech, and the comment that had sparked this line of questioning involved the incoming president’s son’s suggesting that the new US administration would be treating the Greenlanders well under its tutelage.

 “A world that’s burning”

Other leftfield foreign affairs proposals the incoming president delivered comprised of an assertion that Canada has been relying on too many US subsidies for too long, and this also applies to Canadian reliance on the US military, and in Trump’s opinion, this warrants that North American nation becoming another US state, with the Canadian PM being relegated to governor.

And whilst the idea that the US might force Canada into becoming another US state sounds absurd, the US president-elect has already flagged the idea with outgoing Canadian president Justin Trudeau, and the potential for such a development does sound less outlandish, when taking into account the soft colonisation of northern Australia by the US that’s been underway for the last decade. 

Trump further added that he’d see to it that the Ukraine war will be brought to an end, and if Hamas has not handed over the remaining Israeli hostages taken on October 7 by the time of his 20 January inauguration next Monday, then “all hell will break out in the Middle East”.

These “policy threats” also come on the back of his long-spruiked campaign trail promises to implement the mass deportation of undocumented migrants currently living in the United States, which amounts to an estimated 11 million people.

Trump deported 1.5 million people over the course of his first term in office, and now his current administration is suggesting 1 million people could be thrown out of the country every year.

And while the mass deportations will be a shock on the domestic front, Trump is also set to throw a curve ball in regard to the global economy, as he proposes to place tariffs on imported goods, and since being elected, he’s been suggesting an immediate 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as an additional 10 percent on top of current tariffs placed on Chinese goods.

Following his Mar-a-Lago press conference, the US president-elect was convicted last Friday on 34 serious criminal offences, with a federal judge then determining not to punish the incoming head of state in respect of his ‘hush money’ crimes.

During his last term in office, it was common for people to suggest that Trump would make provocative and disingenuous statements simply for the shock value.

However, in the lead up to the 2024 election, many were stating that the difference between Trump and the current US president is that, unlike Joe Biden, when the incoming head of state says he’ll do something, it’s understood he will.

So, based on US president-elect Donald Trump’s recent press conference, along with all the other seemingly bizarre policy proposals he’d been spruiking on the campaign trail, the only thing that appears to be certain is that after his inauguration next week, all bets are off.