What if the President Tries to Annex Greenland and Canada?
One of the underrated accomplishments of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run was that he criticized fellow Republicans for their foreign policy mistakes and lived to tell the tale. When Rep. Ron Paul (R–Texas) ran for president in 2008 and 2012, he was booed repeatedly for criticizing the Iraq War and other neoconservative foreign policy positions and he eventually faded from the race.
In 2016, by contrast, Trump repeatedly slammed the George W. Bush administration for the Iraq War, calling it “a big, fat mistake” and declaring that “we should have never been in Iraq.” Trump also received some boos but nevertheless won the nomination even as he blasted U.S. foreign policy as too war-prone. By the end of that GOP primary season, even New York Times columnists were famously proclaiming that Trump could be a more dovish president than Hillary Clinton.
When Trump ran for president again in 2024, he articulated similarly dovish themes. He blasted his former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley as a “warmonger“; he advocated talking with authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un; and he repeatedly declared that only he could avert World War III. His vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, maintained that Trump was “the candidate of peace.”
But in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term—when not roiling the global economy with tariffs—he has talked an awful lot about absorbing more territory regardless of how the occupants of that territory feel about it. In his second inaugural address, the president pledged that the United States would be a country that “expands our territory.” Some of Trump’s defenders tried to explain away that clause as a reference to space exploration, but that excuse has become less and less plausible.
In just his first two months in office, Trump has repeatedly and insistently declared his interest in annexing Greenland, absorbing Canada, occupying Gaza, reclaiming the Panama Canal, mining rare earths in Ukraine, and unilaterally using force in Mexico. None of this sounds particularly dovish or helpful in averting World War III.
Some of Trump’s more batshit suggestions—like sending the U.S. military to occupy Gaza—might be written off as pipe dreams. His repeated emphasis on territorial expansion, however, cannot be dismissed so easily. The president’s previous statements and first-term record help explain his obsession with expanding America’s borders.
First, Trump has always possessed a mercantilist, zero-sum view of world politics and the global economy. In that mindset, more territory is better than less.
Second, Trump believes that peace among the great powers can be achieved through spheres of influence. This means conceding parts of the globe to Russia and China—while expanding U.S. control over the Western hemisphere.
Third, changing territorial boundaries transgresses all sorts of international norms—and Trump loves transgressing.
Finally, Trump wants to emulate the leaders he admires. Putin and Xi are also into expanding their territorial control.
But the modern world operates differently from how Trump thinks it works. What might have worked in the 18th century is obsolete in the 21st. In trying to manifest his vision board of an expansionist United States, Trump is undermining key strategic pillars that have bolstered the free world for decades. If Trump achieves any of his desired territorial gains, the United States might be larger. But it will also be poorer and radically more insecure.
Trump’s Expansionist Targets
Does Trump actually intend to expand U.S. borders? While he’s talked a lot about territorial expansion since winning in 2024, it was not a prominent part of his campaign rhetoric. He bobs and weaves so much in his public statements that sometimes it seems the only certainty is that Trump likes uncertainty. Reports that he proposed swapping Puerto Rico for Greenland were dismissed as either absurd or naive. Can his more recent musings also be discounted as a madman gambit?
Trump has always been a real estate guy. He likes to own land. He did give hints about his interest in territorial expansion and resource extraction prior to his second inauguration. As far back as 2011, he talked about the alleged need to “take the oil” from Iraq, arguing that we would be “reimbursing ourselves” for the trillions of dollars spent on the Iraq War. During his first term, Trump’s comfort level with redrawing sovereign borders was higher than that of any other postwar president. His administration recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. To secure Morocco’s participation in the Abraham Accords, his administration recognized that country’s annexation of Western Sahara. Except for Israel, the United States remains the only country to recognize both annexations.
Trump’s second-term rhetoric and actions about territorial expansion have been consistent and persistent enough to rattle treaty allies. Panamanian officials have been on edge since Trump started loudly complaining that China controls the Canal Zone. (China does not control the Canal Zone.) In March he told Congress, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it,” causing the president of Panama to issue a public denial. In January there were multiple reports of a tense 45-minute phone conversation between Trump and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, during which Trump issued a variety of coercive threats to pressure Denmark into ceding Greenland to the United States. One European official briefed on the call told the Financial Times, “Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous.” In his first joint address to Congress, Trump declared of Greenland, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
The same dynamic has played out with Canada. Almost immediately after Trump won his second term, he talked about Canada becoming the 51st state and derisively referred to then–Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor.” Canadian o
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