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Trump threatens Denmark with economic retaliation on Greenland

Trump threatens Denmark with economic retaliation on Greenland
The president-elect said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.

Since winning re-election Trump has repeatedly returned to the idea of US territorial expansion - including taking back the Panama Canal.

During the news conference Trump said the canal "is vital to our country" and claimed "it's being operated by China". He previously accused Panama of overcharging US ships to use the waterway, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has rejected Trump's claims and said there is "absolutely no Chinese interference" in the canal.

A Hong Kong-based company, CK Hutchison Holdings, manages two ports at the canal's entrances. The canal was built in the early 1900s and the US maintained control over the canal zone until 1977, when treaties negotiated under President Jimmy Carter gradually ceded the land back to Panama.

"Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake," Trump said. "Look, [Carter] was a good man... But that was a big mistake."

It's unclear how serious the president-elect is about adding to the territory of the US, particularly when it comes to Canada, a country of 41 million people and the second-largest nation by area in the world.

During the news conference Trump called the US-Canada border an "artificially drawn line" and said the US spends billions of dollars protecting Canada, and criticised imports of Canadian cars, lumber and dairy products.

"They should be a state," he told reporters.

During the news conference, Trump also repeated a number of falsehoods and odd conspiracy theories, including suggesting that the FBI was a key driver of the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, and suggesting that Hezbollah, the Islamist militant group, was also involved.

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