Bluster or Consequence?
Everybody is anticipating which or all of the booms on the American order will drop when Trump is inaugurated on January 20th, Trump claiming that he will do them right away. Will they be consequential or mostly bluster? These proposals have been summarized in the New York Times but the best the news columns can do is fact check on whether the President is accurately informed, as if he cares. I am free to speculate about the motives and the seriousness of these various spears upon America on the basis of what has already been said by Trump.
The most flamboyant, outlandish and even comical proposal by Trump is to take Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal under American control of incorporation and to rename “the Gulf of Mexico” as “the Gulf of America”. I suspect that his foreign affairs people, such as incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have not been informed of these prospects that do not even amount to plans, much less position papers developed about the pros and cons, the ins and outs, of such impositions, which is what any responsible government would do before engaging in such bold moods. Even Dick Cheney considered what the CIA thought about weapons of mass destruction before rejecting their advice. But Trump is just winging it. For example, if Canada is absorbed into the United States, why would it come in as a single state rather than the twelve provinces of Canada each becoming a separate state? Or perhaps consolidate provinces so that the maritime provinces get combined into a single state and so there now be half a dozen new states in the American Union? Canada would resist that absorption and the high tariffs on Canada will hurt them more than counter tariffs against the United States, but those latter tariffs would still be considerable and hurt the American economy which Trump claims he is out to bolster, and the American South would resist the addition of half a dozen states because it would dilute its strength in Congress, Canada further left on most social and cultural issues than it is. Trump hasn't thought through a takeover of Canada.
Nor has he thought through needing to take over Greenland. (Maggie Haberman of the Times reports that Trump passed the idea to John Bolton during the first Trump term but that doesn't mean the idea was well briefed.} Trump says a takeover is necessary for national security. But the representative from Greenland in the Danish Parliament has said that everything except sovereignty is to be encouraged. Americans already have an air force base in Greenland and that could be further expanded or added with new bases so as to patrol the new waterways opening up in the north. More tourism would be welcome as would greater exploration of rare earth elements so as not to rely on Chinese production of these now essential materials. Trump is mistakenly thinking only a military solution is needed, just as his mentor Vladimir Putin thought when he invaded Ukraine when through diplomacy he could have gotten the same areas of Ukraine that he will get from peace negotiations that are pretty much the same as the present battle fronts. No usurpation needed, but no parade.
And as for the Panama Canal, Trump says that China has too much influence. Trump could invest more money in Panama and buy Hong Kong corporations, just as Biden was countering China in Africa by investing in Angola and elsewhere. Buying colonies is surer than invading them even when Panama has no army. The rest of Latin American relations to the US would be measurably set back. No FDR Good Neighbor Policy, that invasion would be.
Realize that Trump is not a foreign policy nerd. He is a showman who likes glitter, but how do you rename the Gulf of Mexico? Insist that American schoolbooks change the name? The Ave of the Americas is still Sixth Avenue. Trump wants to assimilate these three areas because as a real estate developer he got a fee to put a Trump marque on many properties even if the funding and ownership were elsewhere. It is the name that makes ity his and so making America more extensive is faux imperialism, just to know that Greenland and Canada and the Canal Zone are ours. This is just the imagination of grandiosity-- or else, given his track record of shifting from one glittering object to another, just like building the Wall has become a continuing threat he might achieve when other issues emerge, the absorption of other countries is available as a new bauble when he fails at doing one of the other and more consequential ambitions, and so is largely bluster, not even worth analyzing, even though I just did.
Let us consider the more serious challenges by Trump to the American order. He is producing a number of nominations for high office that are clearly unsuitable because of character or insufficient relevant experience, many of them who appeared at one time or another on Fox News. Pete Hegsbeth is unqualified to be Secretary of Defense because he is a drunk. Democrats had denied their colleague John Tower as Secretary of Defense because of his drinking problem. Hegsbeth says he will stop drinking if he is confirmed, which is hardly satisfying in that he is not willing to stop even after being nominated. He is a hard core drinker. He also has no administrative experience or a CPA or leader of a major military unit or any other large organization to take over as the largest military organization in the world by far with over two million people to manage and no experience at procurement and armament development. And so on with Telsi Gabbard and others. There is no longer a need for expertise, just loyalty. Whether the weak reeds in the new Congress will resist these appointments remains to be seen. Maybe they will not stomach the assault on expertise as if anyone can do anything, a radical idea of Trump’s, but they have already swallowed a lot, including his being an insurrectionist.
A third attempt to overthrow what are at least American customs of humane refuge to foreigners is packed up in the decision of whether to push through a single reconciliation bill whereby reducing taxes and providing money to set up to deport ten million people will be offered rather than two separate bills, the fear that people who pass one will not pass the other. Deficit hawks, the old Tea Party Republicans, may bridle at spending so much money on deportation, putting aside concerns to being humane. But they too follow Trump and it will be seen how far they resist. Meanwhile Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is planning to hire attorneys to get habeas corpus petitions for jailed illegals and I suspect that the color of law will be abandoned in place of wholesale raids on places of work or residence where illegals congregate. We will see.
To me, however, the most unsettling prospect is to undermine civil discourse by getting rid of the distinction between fact and opinion. Mark Zuckerberg has modified his board of directors to include a Trump advocate and has abolished fact checkers that rein in on clear untruths. That means Trump assertions that are untrue will not be answered. Such an assault on truth can undermine the 2026 midterm election, when war is peace and prosperity is in decline. That is what happened in the recent election when Republicans said the economy was terrible when it was in fact quite good and that was the excuse for voting for a strong man and not having to admit to that shameful choice. On the other hand, I persevere in thinking that reason cannot be abolished by comic books or tik tok or other instruments of mass persuasion and the American people will come to their senses about this dastardly man or at least outlast him. We will see.