Trump Again Calls to Buy Greenland after Eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal

 US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Trump Again Calls to Buy Greenland after Eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal

 US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

First it was Canada, then the Panama Canal. Now, Donald Trump again wants Greenland.

The president-elect is renewing unsuccessful calls he made during his first term for the US to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he's picking fights even before taking office on Jan. 20.

In a Sunday announcement naming his ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that, "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."

Trump again having designs on Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the US could retake control of the Panama Canal if something isn't done to ease rising shipping costs required for using the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

He's also been suggesting that Canada become the 51st US state and referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "governor" of the "Great State of Canada."

Greenland, the world’s largest island, sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 80% covered by an ice sheet and is home to a large US military base. It gained home rule from Denmark in 1979 and its head of government, Múte Bourup Egede, suggested that Trump’s latest calls for US control would be as meaningless as those made in his first term.

"Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale," he said in a statement. "We must not lose our years-long fight for freedom."

Trump canceled a 2019 visit to Denmark after his offer to buy Greenland was rejected by Copenhagen, and ultimately came to nothing.

He also suggested Sunday that the US is getting "ripped off" at the Panama Canal.

"If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question," he said.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that "every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to," but Trump fired back on his social media site, "We’ll see about that!"

The president-elect also posted a picture of a US flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase, "Welcome to the United States Canal!"

The United States built the canal in the early 1900s but relinquished control to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

The canal depends on reservoirs that were hit by 2023 droughts that forced it to substantially reduce the number of daily slots for crossing ships. With fewer ships, administrators also increased the fees that shippers are charged to reserve slots to use the canal.

The Greenland and Panama flareups followed Trump recently posting that "Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State" and offering an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop surveying surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag.

Trudeau suggested that Trump was joking about annexing his country, but the pair met recently at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump's threats to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods.



Passenger Plane Flying from Azerbaijan to Russia Crashes in Kazakhstan with Many Feared Dead

Plane crash in Kazakhstan (Archive - Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan)
Plane crash in Kazakhstan (Archive - Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan)
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Passenger Plane Flying from Azerbaijan to Russia Crashes in Kazakhstan with Many Feared Dead

Plane crash in Kazakhstan (Archive - Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan)
Plane crash in Kazakhstan (Archive - Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan)

An Embraer passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 62 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities announced, saying that 27 people had survived.
Unverified video of the crash showed the plane, which was operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick black smoke then rising. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact, Reuters reported.
The Central Asian country's emergencies ministry said in a statement that fire services had put out the blaze and that the survivors, including three children, were being treated at a nearby hospital.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft, with flight number J2-8243, had been flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia's Chechnya, but had been forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) from the Kazakh city of Aktau.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
Russia's aviation watchdog said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after a bird strike.
Following the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, was returning home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, Russia's RIA news agency reported.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition and that he and others would pray for their rapid recovery.