# Trump now wants to use military force to take the Panama Canal and Greenland **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [January 7, 2025, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691 "2025-01-07T20:27:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/121 "2025-01-09T18:29:25Z")
Canada is not spared. There is plenty of MAGA type idiocy here too, (and not just in Alberta). Our Alberta premier is a full on MAGA flat earth nutcase, and is all over the basically non existent border security issues the Manchurian Cantelope is farting on about. She and her party are actively dismantling Alberta Healthcare in everyway they can get away with - and some eays they won’t. The Alberta populace that voted for them is largely ignorant or on denial of this because many of them consider the conservative party as the only legitimate party. Add in a bunch of anti vax, anti trans, anti human policy. The national conservative party chose a vacuous populist as their leader of choice over several much more competant and experienced candidates. There is a very strong fundamentalist Christian nut case contingent that would be more than happy to see Canada turned into a US state. Not nearly as powerful as the US version though, and I would argue it is largely an American cultural import. We also have the ‘Queen of Canada’ nutcase cult and the Epoch Times / Falun Gung media group. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/122 "2025-01-09T19:06:37Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > But MAGA-adjacent is happening in lots of places, including: Austria, Germany, France, The UK, India, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands… Maybe Canada is being spared, and if so, good for Canada. But the US is not alone in this. All countries have a conservative party. Some have right wing politicians who are dumbasses. But they’re not the same as Trump, and it’s absurdly America-centric to just assume another country’s conservative party is necessarily the equivalent of “MAGA.” The Republican Party’s descent into cultish weirdness isn’t the same as the conservative movement in Belgium or France or the UK or wherever. We aren’t just all smaller USAs. Politics is different in other places. > [@FluffyBob](#): > > Our Alberta premier is a full on MAGA flat earth nutcase, I dislike Danielle Smith too, but no, she is not a flat earther. Took me ten seconds to confirm that’s bullshit, come on. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/123 "2025-01-09T19:13:34Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > All countries have a conservative party. Some have right wing politicians who are dumbasses. But they’re not the same as Trump, and it’s absurdly America-centric to just assume another country’s conservative party is necessarily the equivalent of “MAGA.” Disagree. The real difference is a two-party system vs. a Parliamentary system where it’s just harder to get the critical mass to be in charge. I don’t think Orban, or Wilders, or Farage are better than Trump. It’s just harder for them to get to the top office. I’m sure you’re aware that we’ve seen in Europe where Center/Left parties have had to collude (nothing illegal implied there) to keep their loonies at bay. And anyway, the hard right still appears to be ascendant to me. So you really can’t say they aren’t as bad, just not as bad yet. (And MAGA-adjacent was just meant as shorthand for nutter far right parties; please give me the credit for not thinking the US is always emblematic of everything) ---
**Author:** ![Mikkel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikkel/32/13151_2.png) [@Mikkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikkel)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/124 "2025-01-09T19:32:44Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Greenland is defended by Denmark, which has conscription. But Greenland does not have conscription! How long would mainland Danes be willing to see their conscripts die for Greenlanders whose children were not dying? Remember that a lot of people out in the smaller villages has hunting weapons. It isn’t like in Denmark where it is difficult to get a permit. I think the EU would join up too. We have a defence pact. Anyway I doubt it will come to that. I won’t bet on Trumps intelligens, but the army and navy must have some smart people. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/125 "2025-01-09T19:34:49Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Declaring war is an anachronism, it was never necessary to start a war, but now nobody pretends to do it. Yeah, [since WWII](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war#Declared_wars_since_1945) they’ve been both really rare and almost all in the Middle East and East Africa. The world in general has largely given up the practice. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/126 "2025-01-09T19:56:09Z")
> [@Mikkel](#): > > I think the EU would join up too. We have a defence pact. None of this makes any sense unless Trump and Putin have already divided up their spheres of influence. If a full recording of conservations between Trump and Putin, over the past year, were to leak, we would know whether there really is something to worry about. We may also know pretty soon when we see the position Trump takes on the coming Ukraine negotiations. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/127 "2025-01-09T20:07:23Z")
No you are right, the flat Earth bit is hyperbole. Its a way I commonly describe her as her beliefs and actions that result are unscientific and not based on reality. I was thinking I was in the pit, and should not have posted such a way here. The MAGA part is not hyperble though. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/128 "2025-01-09T20:08:34Z")
I don’t know what to make of this, from the conservative Babylon Bee humor site, but it is on topic: > **[Aww: Trump Announces He Will Let Barron Pick First Country To Invade](https://babylonbee.com/news/aww-trump-announces-he-will-let-barron-pick-first-country-to-invade)** > > U.S. — Donald Trump revealed his sensitive side this week when he announced he would let his son Barron pick the first country to invade. > [@](#): > > The elder Trump allegedly responded by holding him close and whispering, “Just say Greenland, me boy.” ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/129 "2025-01-09T20:15:21Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > not quite half are embarrassed by the situation. 77.3 million citizens voted for him. The US has a population of 334 million. So very roughly, 75% of us are embarrassed by him. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/130 "2025-01-09T20:23:12Z")
In all fairness, you should discount the under-18s and the roughly 3 million in prison and not allowed to vote. And a couple more, probably. From abroad it seems closer to 50-50 than 75-25. Sadly. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/131 "2025-01-09T20:28:16Z")
Denmark is a member of NATO which means an attack on Greenland is an attack on every NATO member. Technically if Trump attacked Greenland every NATO member (including _Canada_ could be obligated to go to war with the US. What would actually happen is NATO just ends up dissolving. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/132 "2025-01-09T20:32:19Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I don’t know what to make of this, from the conservative Babylon Bee humor site, but it is on topic: It is just another in a series of gormless efforts to ‘troll the libs’. Describing the _Babylon Bee_ as a ‘_humor_ site’ is really stretching the semantics of that word. It is at best at the level of ‘dad jokes’ that even most dads wouldn’t actually find amusing. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/133 "2025-01-09T20:40:36Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > In all fairness, you should discount the under-18s and the roughly 3 million in prison and not allowed to vote. And a couple more, probably. The fundamental error in reasoning is that votes are the determining factor on one’s sense of embarrassment of him and that embarrassment is the ‘default’ emotional state. Perhaps, as you say, we discount them, but my guess would be most of the non-voters whether prisoners, under-age, or otherwise, have no strong opinions. And those who do are probably split in their opinion in some proportion resembling the general populace. So, I stand by “at best nearly half”. “At best” because even among those who did not vote for him, I don’t see an overwhelming sense of embarrassment from most of them, either. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/134 "2025-01-09T20:44:19Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > my guess would be most of the non-voters […] have no strong opinions Yeah, that would explain why they did not vote. They don’t much care, if at all. > [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > So, I stand by “at best nearly half”. All I am saying is that that is bad enough. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/135 "2025-01-09T21:54:58Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > There is also the question of where all of these Greenlanders are supposed to go when someone decides to drill for oil or dig a pit mine on top of their house. Are we granting them US citizenship, or are they being shuffled off to Denmark, or maybe make them indentured servants working on the Faroe Islands so they can pay back what they ‘owe’. It’s the world’s biggest island (australia and antarctica technically don’t qualify) and yet only has 60,000 people…there’s a lot of area to drill before you need to start on people’s back gardens. > [@RickJay](#): > > All countries have a conservative party. Some have right wing politicians who are dumbasses. But they’re not the same as Trump, and it’s absurdly America-centric to just assume another country’s conservative party is necessarily the equivalent of “MAGA.” The Republican Party’s descent into cultish weirdness isn’t the same as the conservative movement in Belgium or France or the UK or wherever. Disagree. There’s a big difference between standard conservative politics and MAGA brand of disinformation-based culture wars, hateful rhetoric and intimidation. And social media platforms do not respect borders. Right now here in the UK we have a firestorm of gang rape being used as a political and rhetorical tool, based on disinformation and a desire to legitimize race hate. And it’s all been set off by Elon Musk’s tweets. We can call it MAGA-lite maybe, but it’s far from business as usual conservative politics. > [@Mikkel](#): > > Remember that a lot of people out in the smaller villages has hunting weapons. It isn’t like in Denmark where it is difficult to get a permit. But nor is it a free for all. Hunting rifles are allowed, with a permit. Pretty much all other firearms are banned. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/136 "2025-01-09T21:56:58Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > There’s a big difference between standard conservative politics and MAGA brand of disinformation-based culture wars, hateful rhetoric and intimidation. Not much, they are just a bit more masks-off about it. The main difference is more people are _admitting_ what is happening, not that the Right is acting differently. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/137 "2025-01-09T22:03:55Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It’s the world’s biggest island (australia and antarctica technically don’t qualify) and yet only has 60,000 people…there’s a lot of area to drill before you need to start on people’s back gardens. That is mostly covered by ice sheet and flows. The inhabitable areas are on the periphery which is also where oil, gas, and mineral extraction efforts would initially concentrate because they are accessible and not buried under many hundreds of meters of ice. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/138 "2025-01-09T22:07:26Z")
It depends what we mean by mask-off. Until recently, there had been a trend of politics being increasingly liberal and progressive, and even Conservatives here in the UK needing to claim to support a diverse society as well as action on climate change etc. Of course many politicians actually held quite bigoted and scientifically ignorant views, but not only did they need to be careful with how they expressed such opinions, it was definitely difficult to propose anything policy-wise that would e.g. target brown people For clarity: I’m not suggesting that the UK is some kind of non-racist utopia; I’m mixed race, I’ve experienced the racism. But, policy-wise, the direction of travel was good. In the modern era, where people form opinions based on memes and podcasters, extreme views are winning against rationality. And, because of a pliant audience, politicians can overtly push racist politicies and talking points. To me, that’s a key difference, I’d rather call it a transformation than mask-off. But I guess potato, tomato. The key thing is, MAGA and MAGA-lite is happening in many countries. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/139 "2025-01-09T22:11:50Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > That is mostly covered by ice sheet and flows. The inhabitable areas are on the periphery which is also where oil, gas, and mineral extraction efforts would initially concentrate The settlements are tiny, and pretty much the whole periphery of the island has oil deposits. Even with the constraint of not drilling through thick ice there’s still vast areas to tap before going near the settlements. Not that I would trust the US government, or oil companies. Just to say there’s room. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691/140 "2025-01-09T22:26:06Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > Greenland sits on about 17 billion barrels of oil, which is worth about $1.2 trillion. And that’s just the oil, there’s lots of other stuff there too. I only took a quick look, but **[Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/greenland-puts-an-end-unsuccessful-oil-adventure-2021-07-16/)** – citing a 2007 USGS estimate – pins the number at “up to 31.4 billion barrels.” Which [checks math] … ain’t nothin’. It seems that Greenland recently suspended its 50-year quest to become an oil-producing nation. Something about … > Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister of natural resources, said in a statement on Thursday that the government “has assessed that the environmental consequences of oil exploration and extraction are too great.” Reached for comment, President-elect Donald J. Trump simply said, > Hold my Diet Coke. This is one piece of the article that – without me looking further – seems superficially incongruous: > Oil exploration has taken place since the 1970s, involving major companies such as Shell (RDSa.L), Chevron (CVX.N), ExxonMobil (XOM.N), and Eni (ENI.MI), but most drilling came up dry. Hm. Swing and a miss? Wrong hole(s)? Remember: At a Mar-A-Lago fundraiser, Trump told oil executives that – if they contributed a collective ONE BILLION DOLLARS to Trump’s campaign, he would roll back every environmental regulation from Biden’s administration, and he would allow no further environmental regulations in a second Trump administration. Think Trump slightly modified the offer to more closely align with his personal financial goals? This, IMHO, is why we can never totally ignore the lunatic rantings and ravings of this sociopath. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-now-wants-to-use-military-force-to-take-the-panama-canal-and-greenland/1012691.md?page=8)