Transition 2025: Donald Trump Sets His Sights on Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal

If Christmas week is a time for presidents-elect to lie low and focus on their upcoming inauguration, Donald Trump missed the memo. The incoming forty-seventh president took to his social media platform Truth Social this week to call for reclaiming the Panama Canal, acquiring Greenland, and making Canada the fifty-first state. In doing so, he exposed the Achilles heel of his foreign policy—his willingness to alienate America’s friends unnecessarily.

On Saturday, Trump accused Panama of charging “exorbitant prices and rates of passage” on U.S. navy and commercial ships.

Panama’s President José Raúl Molino, who Politico reports “was elected earlier this year on a pledge to bring his country closer to the United States,” responded by saying that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama’s and will remain so,” and that the “sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable.” Trump did not take the rebuff well.

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As is often true with Trump’s pronouncements, his complaint about the mistreatment of U.S. vessels does not square with the facts. As the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, hardly a bastion of the anti-Trump resistance, put it, “Mr. Trump’s claim that Panama is gouging Americans is unfounded. Every vessel, regardless of its flag, pays the same rate according to tonnage and type. Container ships, which carry finished goods, pay more than bulk carriers. About 75% of the total price is a toll and 25% is for services like tugboat or locomotive escorts.”

As for Greenland, Trump wrote at the end of a Truth Social post on Sunday announcing his nominee for ambassador to Demark that “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” (Greenland, which until 1953 was a Danish colony, is an autonomous district of Denmark that has its own local government.) Neither Greenland nor Denmark took Trump’s comments as a joke. Greenland’s Prime Minister said: “We are not for sale, and we will not be for sale." The Danish government announced it was increasing defense spending for Greenland to demonstrate its resolve.

Trump repeated his calls for U.S. ownership of the Panama Canal and Greenland in his Christmas message on Truth Social. He also called once again for making Canada the fifty-first state.

 Trump’s defenders insist that such surprise demands secure a diplomatic advantage for the United States precisely because they upend expectations and diplomatic norms. In this line of thinking, Trump’s unpredictability is much like a baseball pitcher throwing high and inside to a batter. It puts other capitals on their back heels and less able to resist U.S. demands.

Perhaps. But the problem with this week’s provocations is less Trump’s tactics than his enthusiasm for picking unnecessary fights with friends. The United States today faces the most competitive geopolitical situation in decades. China is the first peer competitor that can challenge U.S. leadership economically, militarily, and technologically. It is deepening its ties with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other countries that share its desire to weaken U.S. power. And it is building its relations with so-called swing powers such as Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates that could decide the evolution of the world order.

Faced with such competition, the United States should be strengthening its ties with friends, partners, and allies. They have long been force-multipliers for U.S. power. As the saying goes, there is strength in numbers.

Beijing certainly understands the concept. That is why it seeks to sow divisions in U.S. alliance relations. Beijing wants countries to question U.S. leadership and to doubt Washington’s intentions and reliability. A United States that has fewer partners, or less committed ones, is a United States that will command less influence on the world scene.

All of this is lost on Trump. He remains convinced, as he put it at a campaign rally last spring, that “in many cases, our allies are worse than our so-called enemies.” That assessment is wrong. But it drives his thinking and explains why he seems more interested in picking fights with friends than enlisting them in a common cause. And that will make it harder for the United States to succeed in a world of great power competition.

What the Biden Administration Is Doing

The Biden administration opened a “Section 301” trade investigation into so-called legacy semiconductor chips made in China. According to the Commerce Department, two-thirds of U.S.-made products rely on Chinese legacy chips. If the review finds that China semiconductor unfairly burdens U.S. commerce, the United States can respond by imposing tariffs.

The Biden administration also moved to lift the $10 million bounty the United States has on Syria’s new leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who is also known by nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. The bounty was placed on Sharaa because of his actions while heading the rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which grew out of an al-Qaeda affiliate. The Biden administration also sent its chief hostage envoy to Syria in a bid to get the new regime’s help in finding American journalist Austin Tice. He went missing in Syria a dozen years ago. 

The Biden administration announced that the United States would seek to slash greenhouse gas emissions in 2035 by 61 to 66 percent compared to 2005. The new climate target also came with a pledge to reduce methane emissions by at least 35 percent. The targets were set as part of the Nationally Determined Contributions mandated by the Paris Agreement. Trump will likely withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, rendering the Biden administration’s move moot.

Trump’s Appointments

Trump continued his practice of naming special envoys whose portfolios overlap with established government positions. He named Mark Burnett, the creator and producer of Trump’s show The Apprentice and other TV hits, to be special envoy to the United Kingdom. The post is separate from the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Trump has tapped billionaire investment banker Warren Stephens for that post. Trump said that Burnett will “enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges.” It is unclear how those duties differ from what an ambassador typically does.

The president-elect also tapped Mauricio Claver-Carone as his special envoy for Latin America. Claver-Carone was deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs on the staff of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term. Trump named him to be president of the Inter-American Development Bank in 2020. The bank’s governing board fired him two years into his five-year term because he had an inappropriate romantic relationship with a subordinate whose salary he increased considerably. Again, Trump did not say how Claver-Carone’s policy remit will differ from that of the secretary of state or the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Trump filled several senior positions in the Defense Department. He tapped Stephen Feinberg to be deputy secretary, Elbridge Colby to be undersecretary for policy, Michael Duffey to be undersecretary for acquisitions and sustainment, and Emil Michael to be undersecretary for research and engineering. Feinberg, the billionaire co-chief executive of the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, sat on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board during Trump’s first term but otherwise has never held a position in government. Colby is a China hawk who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the first Trump administration. Duffey has held numerous positions in the Defense Department and bills himself as “a champion for asserting United States military dominance through aggressive funding, development, and procurement of cutting-edge technology.” Michael was a White House fellow who served as a special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and later became a senior executive at Uber.

What the Pundits Are Writing

The Financial Times reported that Trump representatives have been telling European leaders that Trump will demand that all “NATO member states increase defence spending to 5 percent of GDP, but plans to continue supplying military aid to Ukraine.” No country in NATO, including the United States, currently spends 5 percent of its GDP on defense. Only Poland country spends more than 4 percent of GDP on defense. The United States spends 3.1 percent of its GDP on defense. The current NATO spending goal is 2 percent of GDP, a target that twenty-three of thirty-two members are hitting. The 5 percent number is likely a negotiating ploy. Barring its entry into a large-scale war, the United States almost certainly will not hit the 5 percent target anytime soon. Trump’s proposed tax cuts will balloon the U.S. federal deficit and further diminish the congressional appetite to increase defense spending by another $300 billion annually.

The Financial Times also reported that Trump plans to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) on his first day in office. The United States provides roughly 16 percent of the WHO’s funding, making it the organization’s biggest contributor. The move, assuming it goes forward, will likely cement Chinese influence at the WHO.

What the Polls Show

Gallup flagged twenty trends to follow in 2025. Two foreign policy topics made the list: “opinions on Israel and the state of Palestine,” and “shifting enthusiasm for foreign trade.” On the former, Gallup notes that since October 7, the American public’s “sympathies toward the two sides in the context of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict were largely unchanged.” On the latter, Gallup notes that Republicans’ optimism about trade sank once Joe Biden became president and asks whether “Trump’s recent statements on trade cause Republicans to continue believing it’s a threat, or once again cause them to believe that trade will benefit the U.S. under his leadership?” 

The Election Certification Schedule

The 119th U.S. Congress will be sworn into office next Friday (January 3, 2025)

The U.S. Congress certifies the results of the 2024 presidential election in ten days (January 6, 2025).

Inauguration Day is in twenty-four days (January 20, 2025)

Oscar Berry assisted in the preparation of this post.