The "near abroad" comes home
"If a nation keeps order and pays its obligations..."
I got asked in public on Friday and in private on Saturday what Donald Trump is up to with this annexation business, so here’s my best answer. Maybe he means nothing. Maybe he means something but won’t get around to it. This happens to leaders all the time, and more to Trump than most. But when a man has aircraft carriers, I pay attention. Here’s what I’ve noticed.
There’s the language in Trump’s second inaugural address, that “the United States will once again consider itself a growing nation — one that… expands our territory.” The president departed occasionally in his delivery from his prepared text, but this didn’t sound like one of those cases, so I take it as something he meant to say.
There’s his call to Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen about buying Greenland. The call was “horrendous,” somebody told the Financial Times. The Danes are “freaked out” and “in crisis mode.” Another source: “Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious and potentially very dangerous.”
Trump’s language on Panama and Greenland is blunter still — he’s refused to rule out military force in either confrontation, and in his inaugural speech he said he’s “taking [the Panama Canal] back.” But his language on Canada is blunt enough. He now routinely calls Canada essentially a fake country, separated from the US by only “an imaginary line” and a river of debt, subsidy and obligation that flows only one way, from Canada to him.
I’ll cut to the chase. I don’t expect an invasion. But I think it’s folly to think a president who talks and thinks like this isn’t a very large problem for Canada.
Incidentally, you know who else talks a lot about imaginary countries? Vladimir Putin.