Late-night comedians have had a area day with Donald Trump’s musings about his administration probably seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Hahahahahaha! That Trump — such a humorous man — you by no means know what’s going to come out of his mouth subsequent. Pay no consideration. You already know him, he’ll simply say one thing else outrageous tomorrow!
Properly, I’ll inform you who I’m sure is paying consideration: President Xi Jinping of China. If the U.S. president can determine that he needs to grab Greenland and explicitly refuses to rule out the usage of drive to take action, that is sort of a big permission slip for China to grab Taiwan, which has robust emotional, historic, linguistic and nationwide connections to mainland China.
It took only some days after Trump’s remarks for this joke to begin circulating amongst China specialists:
Query: “What does Xi Jinping feel when Trump starts talking about taking Greenland and the Panama Canal?”
Reply: “Hungry” — for Taiwan.
Trump’s remarks are reckless stupidity past perception. Think about what occurs when his selection for ambassador to Beijing, David Perdue, takes up his put up and, in response to some aggressive act by China towards Taiwan, goes to the Chinese language Overseas Ministry to lodge a protest. What’s going to the ministry say?
Presumably one thing like: “You come in here to protest our actions to reunite with Taiwan when your president is threatening to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal by force? We believe Taiwan is an integral part of China — a belief that while you do not share it, you acknowledged in the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué. What is your connection to Greenland? The fact that Donald Trump Jr. went there on vacation once? Tell your president that China and Russia have as much a claim to Greenland as America does.’’
Vladimir Putin is surely thinking the same thing. How does America get off telling him that by invading Ukraine he has violated international laws and norms by seizing the territory of another nation, while Trump muses about seizing Greenland and forcibly reimposing U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal? Ukraine’s territory was once part of Mother Russia, as was Crimea, which Putin has already fully taken back.
No wonder Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told CNBC on Thursday that Russia is “watching the rhetoric on these topics coming out of Washington with great interest.”
Some might imagine Trump’s remarks on taking Greenland and the Panama Canal are only a joke from an attention-seeking chief with no filter. They aren’t a joke. They’re a prescription for chaos. They’ve already executed extra injury than folks notice. If Trump persists with them, the joke will probably be fully on us and on the world order we established after World Warfare II.
Thomas Friedman is a New York Occasions columnist.
