You know the old adage. There are three things to remember in the real estate business: location, location, location.
And who is a better student of the rough-and-tumble realty game than Donald Trump?
That’s nearly all you need to know about the President-elect’s recent vows to take Greenland and the Panama Canal, by (wink-wink) any means necessary.
In fact, Trump is sending a message to the world and America’s enemies: We’re serious about protecting the Western Hemisphere – again.
Statesmen since before Abraham Lincoln have looked both north and south to help safeguard our nation.
America’s 5th president James Monroe warned France, Russia, and Spain in 1823 that the US would oppose any great power that sought to control the former Spanish colonies in Latin America.
In 1869, before America decided where a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans should go, President Ulysses S. Grant tried to acquire the Dominican Republic to protect critical sea lanes. He dispatched the great abolitionist turned diplomat Frederick Douglass to the island, but the US Senate rejected the deal.
Decades later, Americans built the Panama Canal under Teddy Roosevelt. Ronald Reagan argued against Jimmy Carter giving it back to Panama in 1978. And George H.W. Bush invaded in 1989 overthrowing its Panama’s dictator, in part to protect the canal zone.
Who is a better student of the rough-and-tumble realty game than Donald Trump?
America’s defensive interests have also extended north of our borders.
William Seward, the Secretary of State, who purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, commissioned a report the following year on acquiring Greenland from Denmark.
That deal never came to fruition, but America would eventually take control of the island during World War II after the Danish government fell to the Nazis.
The U.S. built Thule Air Base on the northwest coast of Greenland after the war. And during the Cold War, it served as a key part of an early warning system in case of a Soviet nuclear attack.
It’s now known as Pituffik Space Base and is operated by the U.S. Space Force (a Trump creation).
The ‘Monroe Doctrine’ has since gone out of fashion, especially in recent decades as America’s focus has shifted to the Middle East, Ukraine, and Taiwan. But Trump is absolutely justified in course correcting now, concluding that we’ve neglected our neighbors for too long.
Trouble has been brewing.
Take the Panama Canal – Chinese influence has been steadily growing there even as US money and arms have – rightfully – shored up allies in eastern Europe.
A Hong Kong-based firm now manages ports at both entrances to the canal. If hostilities between the US and China were to erupt, passage through the canal would doubtlessly be a first point of contention.
Take the Panama Canal – Chinese influence has been steadily growing there even as US money and arms have – rightfully – shored up allies in eastern Europe.
Ronald Reagan argued against Jimmy Carter giving it back to Panama in 1978 (pictured above). And George H.W. Bush invaded in 1989 overthrowing its Panama’s dictator, in part to protect the canal zone.
It’s also easy to forget in a world gone digital that the world’s sea lanes are more important than ever before.
When a stuck ship is stuck in the Suez Canal, or there is a threat of a port strike, or ships are harassed by Somalia pirates off the coast of Africa, there are serious economic consequences. And no sea lane is more critical to America than the Panama Canal, which handles 40 percent of US container shipping.
Now, consider Greenland. Three times the size of Texas, it has a population of just 56,000. New York’s Staten Island alone has nine times that number. The United States could make much better military and economic use of the place than Denmark does.
Most of it is frozen tundra and will stay that way unless the earth gets a good deal warmer. But it’s got natural resources and, more importantly, a strategically crucial location on the Arctic Ocean.
That’s another place the Chinese are looking to expand their influence. As former National Security Advisor John Bolton says, in Greenland, ‘The prize is security.’
Even Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman thinks the proposed purchase has merit and slammed the left-wing ‘freakout’ over the notion.
‘If anyone thinks that’s bonkers,’ Fetterman said, ‘it’s like, well, remember the Louisiana Purchase?’
A Hong Kong-based firm now manages ports at both entrances to the canal. If hostilities between the US and China were to erupt, passage through the canal would doubtlessly be a first point of contention.
Indeed. But with Trump it’s often his tone, more than his topics, that upset his opponents.
By threatening to rename the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America’ and by insulting Canada’s prime minister by calling him the governor of the 51st state,’ Trump rallies his supporters and riles his critics.
He also starts a negotiation on his terms, starting with the most outlandish demands but with designs on a deal.
Trump doesn’t actually need the United States to take over the canal – he just needs the Panamanian government to be more afraid of angering us than of China.
And buying Greenland from Denmark would be nice, but it’s not necessary. Trump will succeed if he can expand American influence there and curb China’s creep.
The crazy talk won’t end in wars or new American territory.
But it’s not crazy to start the bidding high.
For Trump, this is just a real estate deal.
And he likes the location.
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