Is Trump threatening a U.S. seizure of the Panama Canal? Are we going to be drawn into an imperialist war at the outset of fascist Trump’s administration?
Link to what OP is talking about;
My take? More of his usual bluster. He didn’t get the debt ceiling abolition he was demanding from Congress, so now he’s going after someone he perceives as a weaker target out of an expectation that they’ll just give him whatever he wants in order to make him happy. He’ll probably threaten to “tariff them” if they don’t turn over the Canal Zone, but like most schoolyard bullies he isn’t going to actually do anything about it when they don’t immediately roll over.
Incidentally, looking at the full text of the tweet, there’s no way in hell Vice President Trump wrote this.
Someone on Bluesky pointed out that “magnanimous gesture” is a phrase that Vice President Trump’s boss has used on Twitter before.
He’s not vice President. He’s simply Vice.
And seizing back the Suez Canal did such wonders for the UK and France…
Seizing Ukraine is doing such wonders for Russia…
Well, in a magnanimous gesture, we decided to let it to Nasser…
It is showing Trump how far you can go and still stay in power if you throw morals and ethics out the window.
Okay, hang on: don’t you first need to have some before you can then defenestrate them?
Trump may have bought some on margin, so no skin off his nose.
Agreed.
But if Trump is going to launch a war, he would want to find one where the enemy is easy to defeat. Contrast Panama to Mexico, another country that some Republicans want to invade. According to Wikipedia, the Mexican military has about 411,000 active duty members, plus a reserve. Panama has 16,000. Not as easy-peasy as Grenada was for Reagan, but it will hard for the generals to convince Trump it’s high risk.
Do I really predict Trump will invade Panama? No, but he’ll be considering it, Musk or no Musk.
I think more and more Trump’s notices will not actually be written by Trump.
Slow down. It must have been a rainy day in Mad-a-Lardo - no golf. Some aide came up with the idea for a distracting shiny object. Told TFG that Obama had given the canal back to Panama (Carter but CFSG can’t remember that far back). Biden gave the canal to the Chinese* China**. Also, Panama took away his perfect hotel aided by Soros and Hillary***.
The aides must be falling down laughing over his outburst that they crafted.
*Trump only knows China, doesn’t understand Chi-knees.
**Hong Kong-based company Hutchison Ports PPC (a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings) manages the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on either side of the Panama Canal, giving China significant influence over the waterway’s operations;
***A workman wielding a crowbar pried off the silver T-R-U-M-P name from the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Panama back in 2018.
It’s a replay of the ‘greatest’ hits.
Remember a few years back with all that nonsense about buying Greenland from Denmark? How it would be easy and cheap to do, despite making no sense whatsoever politically, economically, or in any other way for anybody else?
More of that. Somebody put a worm in his ear, and he thinks repeating it makes him look smart and/or strong.
For historical context, many (most?) Americans considered giving control of the Panama Canal to Panama as a mistake when Carter did it in 1977.
“Panama’s a state now. Anybody got a problem with that?”
As I understand it, Panama was willing to sabotage the canal if things had gone wrong regarding the transfer back.
They would be in an even better position now to blow the sluice gates up if it looks like Trump is going to do something stupid about the canal.
Also, strategically the canal is not that important to the US military as it was when first built (and anyway, the big US navy ships don’t fit through the canal anymore).
I TOLD him not to Dance cheek-to-cheek with RFK Junior!
I was wondering about that; many ships, both commercial and military are too big today. Plus I’m sure other countries like China are pleased that Trump is distracted by irrelevant obsessions like this, or buying Greenland and ignoring the real issues facing the United States now and in the future.
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Sodokufan’s other posts