from Hacker News

Trump declines to rule out using military to control Greenland, Panama Canal

by kasperni on 1/7/25, 5:41 PM with 32 comments

• by thomassmith65 on 1/7/25, 9:50 PM

  This news items does not deserve a flag. It's not every day an American president publicly muses about annexing neighbouring countries.

• by hindsightbias on 1/7/25, 7:43 PM

  An invasion of Greenland would fall under Article 5 and we'd be at war with NATO.

  An interesting strategy.

• by danielovichdk on 1/7/25, 6:06 PM

  I doubt it. Because the western premises and good faith leans on the non written law of not taking eachothers land.

  Exactly what Russia did in Ukraine.

  But that doesn't mean the guy is not doing it. The option is there.

  One thing we don't know yet is whether US intelligence knows something we don't, in terms of China and or Russia.

  USA has since 1942 I believe had the military defence over the island, so in that capacity its not something new.

• by wumeow on 1/7/25, 6:00 PM

  Also

  > Trump says 'economic force' could be used to unite Canada, United States

  > Trump says Meta 'probably' ended factchecking because of his threats

  > Trump says Gulf of Mexico should be renamed to 'Gulf of America'

• by mads on 1/7/25, 6:35 PM

  That convicted drug dealer or smuggler Greenland guy with the maga cap in the video he shared encapsulates this very well.

• by churchill on 1/7/25, 6:28 PM

  I remember reading Frederick's Forsyth's Fourth Protocol where a Soviet Premier authorized a suitcase nuclear attack on a British base to get swing votes to vote in Labour, use their influence to withdraw the UK from NATO, expel the Americans and their nukes from British bases, and eventually destroy the Americo-European alliance.

  In reality, it seems the American administration (both Biden & Trump) is working overtime to damage the cross-Atlantic alliance and the rules-based order better than entire departments at FSB.

  Where do I even start?

  Threatening the sovereignty of non-hostile states - Panama, Canada, Greenland. Continuously funding an unpopular war (some say, genocide) in Palestine. Threatening grievous sanctions against allies for no economically sound reason. Inviting Putin to "do whatever he wants" to NATO allies.

  ...to mention but a few.

  Quoting De Gaulle: The truth is that the Americans will eventually make themselves hated by everyone, even by their most unconditional allies.

• by legitster on 1/7/25, 6:55 PM

  > Don’t forget, we basically protect Canada. But here’s the problem with Canada. So many friends up there, I love the Canadian people. They’re great, but we’re spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it. We’re spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. We lose in trade deficits.

  Trump is engaging in some light trolling here. He's going off script and just saying whatever comes across his mind. His overall goal is to lay out grievances and trying to upsell their severity. The end goal is, and always is, to make some kind of "deal". He's a Karen, trying to talk to the manager.

  People shouldn't take his threats literally - but you should take them seriously. I don't think the threat is that the US invades Greenland, but that the US uses it as an excuse to try to sour relations with Europe.

  Same thing with Panama and renaming the gulf thing. I don't think the US would take over Panama (again). But there is probably going to be a massive effort to get China to stop trading with Cuba and Venezuela.

• by tim333 on 1/7/25, 9:56 PM

  While I dislike the term "fake news" this is a typical example of a lefty mainstream source distorting what Trump said to make him look bad and then declining to link to the original source so as to make it hard to catch them out.

  Here's what he actually said https://youtu.be/K0EaHawPM2g

  As an aside I think the whole strategy is past its best by date. People are wise to it and still elected Trump despite the best efforts.