President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to rule out using the U.S. military to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal, ideas he has repeatedly floated since winning the election.
He threatened to hit Denmark with tariffs “at a very high level” if the country refuses to give over Greenland to the U.S., and questioned whether Denmark has any legal right over the Arctic island.
Trump also vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—“a beautiful name,” he said—and promised to impose significant tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
He threatened to hit Denmark with tariffs “at a very high level” if the country refuses to give over Greenland to the U.S., and questioned whether Denmark has any legal right over the Arctic island.
Trump also vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—“a beautiful name,” he said—and promised to impose significant tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Go ahead, please.
00:01Q Mr. President, thank you.
00:02I wanted to touch on the world on fire.
00:03Your references to Greenland and the Panama Canal and so forth, can you assure the world
00:04that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic
00:05coercion?
00:06THE PRESIDENT.
00:07No.
00:08Q And can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is?
00:09What is the strategy in that?
00:10THE PRESIDENT.
00:11I can't assure you.
00:12You're talking about Panama and Greenland.
00:13No, I can't assure you.
00:14I can't assure you.
00:15I can't assure you.
00:16I can't assure you.
00:17I can't assure you.
00:18I can't assure you.
00:19I can't assure you.
00:20I can't assure you.
00:21I can't assure you.
00:22I can't assure you.
00:23the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military
00:28or economic coercion?
00:29THE PRESIDENT.
00:30No, I can't assure you.
00:31I can't assure you.
00:32I can't assure you.
00:33I can't assure you.
00:34I can't assure you.
00:35I can't assure you.
00:36I can't assure you.
00:37It has to be up front.
00:40I can't offer you a view.
00:44Look, the Panama Canal is viable to our country.
00:49to our country.
00:50It's being operated by China.
00:53China.
00:54And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama.
00:56We didn't give it to China.
00:58And they've abused it.
00:59They've abused that gift.
01:00It should have never been made, by the way.
01:02Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion, more so
01:07maybe than the hostages.
01:08The hostages were a big deal.
01:10But if you remember, and nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now because, you know,
01:14that's inappropriate, I guess, because it's a bad part of the Carter legacy, but he was
01:21a good man.
01:22Look, he was a good man.
01:23I knew him a little bit, and he was a very fine person.
01:26But that was a big mistake.
01:27Sir, real fast.
01:28You said you were considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland.
01:29Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Panama?
01:37No.
01:38Economic force.
01:39Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.
01:45You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like.
01:49And it would also be much better for national security.
01:51Don't forget, we basically protect Canada.
01:54But here's the problem with Canada.
01:56So many friends up there.
01:59I love the Canadian people.
02:01They're great.
02:02But we're spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it.
02:06We're spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada.
02:10We lose in trade deficits.
02:12We're losing massive.
02:13We don't need their cars.
02:14You know, they make 20% of our cars.
02:16We don't need that.
02:17I'd rather make them in Detroit.
02:19We don't need the cars.
02:20We don't need their lumber.
02:21We have massive fields of lumber.
02:23We don't need their lumber.
02:25We have to unrestrict them, because stupid people put restrictions on, but I can do that
02:30with an executive order.
02:32We don't need anything they have.
02:33We don't need their dairy products.
02:35We have more than they have.
02:36We don't need anything.
02:37Why are we losing $200 billion a year and more to protect Canada?
02:43Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes.
02:46I've been told that for a long time, long before I even ran.
02:49I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time.
02:52You have approximately 45,000 people there.
02:56People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it.
03:01But if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security.
03:04That's for the free world.
03:05I'm talking about protecting the free world.
03:08You look at — you don't even need binoculars.
03:11You look outside, you have China ships all over the place.
03:15You have Russian ships all over the place.
03:18We're not letting that happen.
03:20We're not letting it happen.
03:22And if Denmark wants to get to a conclusion — but nobody knows if they even have any
03:27right, title, or interest.
03:29The people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States.
03:33But if they did, if they did do that, then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.
03:37Have you asked your staff to draw up plans for acquisition?
03:40I mean, are you acting on that?
03:41No, not at that stage.
03:42But we have people — I haven't even entered office yet.
03:45We have a massive deficit with Mexico.
03:48And we help Mexico a lot.
03:50They're essentially run by the cartels.
03:53And can't let that happen.
03:57Mexico's really in trouble.
03:58A lot of trouble.
03:59A very dangerous place.
04:03And we're going to be announcing at a future date, pretty soon, we're going to change — because
04:09we do most of the work there, and it's ours — we're going to be changing sort of the
04:14opposite of Biden, where he's closing everything up, essentially getting rid of $50 to $60
04:20trillion worth of assets.
04:21We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which
04:29has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory.
04:33The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name.
04:36And it's appropriate.
04:37It's appropriate.