Trump’s annexation plans for Greenland and Canada run into resistance

US President Donald Trump’s oft-repeated intention to annex Greenland and Canada has run into resistance so angry and public that Vice President JDVance, cut short a visit to Greenland from three days to little more than three hours.  

At the same time, Canadian anger over US policy in general and Trump’s talk of turning the country into the 51st US state in particular boiled over with an angry statement by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney deploring the end of decades of close and friendly relations between the two neighbours. 

The old relationship “based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” he told reporters in Ottawa. Canada must “fundamentally reimagine” its economy, he added. 

What links the anger in Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark, and Canada, is an American push for territorial expansion that began when Trump returned to the White House and expressed wishes to take control of the Panama Canal, turn war-devastated Gaza into an American-designed “Middle East Riviera” and take over Canada and Greenland.

In his inaugural address, Trump spoke of his intention “to expand our territory,” a policy aim that has been greeted with dismay and consternation by most countries in the sprawling global network of alliances successive US administrations have built up since the end of World War Two.  

The latest of many baffling examples of the haphazard and tone-deaf way of governing in the era of Trump 2.0 came last Sunday when Usha Vance, the Vice President’s Indian-heritage wife, announced she would visit Greenland for a private cultural visit and to attend the territory’s annual dog-sled race.  

That prompted frosty responses from officials in both Denmark and Greenland, who noted that she had not been invited. Nevertheless, the American government dispatched two Hercules military aircraft carrying security personnel and bulletproof vehicles to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. 

Two days later, the Vice President announced he would join his wife and one of his sons, turning what had been flagged as a private visit into a high-profile government delegation including Energy Secretary Chris Wright and national security adviser Mike Waltz. 

Criticism from Denmark and Greenland over the change rose to such a pitch that Washington scaled down the trip. To avoid protest demonstrations at Nuuk airport, the group travelled straight to a U.S. military base at Pituffik in the north of the vast Arctic island.  

Under a 1951 agreement, the US is entitled to visit the base whenever it wants. 

While Vance and his team toured the base, one of America’s most strategically important military sites in the world, back in Washington, Trump declared that “we have to have” Greenland for the sake of U.S. and international security.  

The base is responsible for missile defence and space surveillance. Its super-sophisticated early warning system, recently upgraded, can detect ballistic missiles in their earliest moments of flight. 

The American visit came just a few hours after a new Greenland government coalition made its first appearance after recent elections. It aims to maintain ties with Denmark for the time being and its prime minister, Jens-Frederic Nielsen, termed the U.S. visit as a “lack of respect.” 

After his swearing in, Nielsen called for unity to cope with “external pressure”—a polite way of referring to Trump’s oft-stated desire—first mooted in his previous term – to buy Greenland. Officials in Denmark and Greenland have endlessly repeated that Greenland is not for sale. 

At a brief press conference Vance gave after touring the base, he was asked whether Trump’s “we have to have” Greenland meant the US might use military force to achieve that. He said it did not, and explained that the preferred outcome of wrangling over Greenland would for it to become fully independent of Denmark. 

Denmark, he said, had “not done a god job” for Greenland by under-investing into the territory’s “security architecture.” That was important, according to Vance, because the U.S. had evidence that both China and Russia had a strong interest in the territory. He gave no details of the evidence. 

“What we think is going to happen is that Greenlanders are going to chose—through self-determination—to become independent of Denmark and then we are going to have conversations with the people of Greenland from there,” Vance said. 

Vance appeared convinced that the people of Greenland (population: 57,000) would want to join the US. That appears to be wishful thinking and flies in the face of opinion polls saying that 85 per cent of the people do not want to be part of the US.

That mirrors the views of people in the other country Trump wants to bring under American control – Canada. A poll issued shortly before the Vance Greenland visit found overwhelming opposition to Canada becoming the U.S.’s 51st state. Four in five Canadians strongly oppose the idea, and 79 per cent are worried about Trump’s rhetoric.  

Unlike in Greenland, there are no fears in Canada of US military action to take over the country. But there are fears of the devastating economic impact of the tariffs Trump is imposing on imports from Canada. Next week (April 2) cars imported from Canada will carry a 25 per cent tariff. 

Prime Minister Carney has vowed retaliation but did not spell out details. The premier of Ontario, Canada’s largest and wealthiest province, did. 

Premier Doug Ford told reporters that Canada could push back with “$65 billion of tariffs that we have on the table that we can launch towards the US—we have to run through every tariff and minimise the pain for Canadians, maximise the pain for Americans.” 

Economists have estimated that the Trump tariffs will raise the price of cars made in Canada by up to $8,000. That is likely to backfire on Trump and his Republican Party: His election campaign promised lower prices for American consumers, from groceries to automobiles. 

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