President-elect President Donald Trump has again raised the prospect of the United States taking control of Greenland and the Panama Canal to improve U.S. economic security.
Asked at a news conference if he would rule out economic or military force to gain control of the two territories, Trump said: “I’m not gonna commit to that. No. It might be that you’ll have to do something.
“I can’t assure you — you’re talking about Panama and Greenland — no, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this: We need them for economic security.”
Trump, who will be sworn in for his second term as President on 20 January, was criticised in 2019 when he expressed interest in purchasing Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, an idea Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called "absurd".
Denmark and Panama have refused to give up their territories.
Trump was speaking at the same time that his son Donald Trump Jr was visiting Greenland on what he described as a "personal day trip" with no meetings planned with government officials.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, is of high importance because of its location between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans and large reserves of rare earth minerals used batteries and high-tech devices, and it hosts a large American space facility.
The 80-kilometre Suez Canal is an important shipping and trade route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump was also quoted as saying Canada should be a U.S. state and that its border was an "artificially drawn line".
But Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected Trump's threat to annex its closest ally, saying there “wasn't a snowball's chance in hell” that Canada would join the U.S.
