Leaders are pushing back after President-elect Donald Trump declined to rule out the use of economic or military coercion to assert control over Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“No, I can’t assure you on either of those two, but I can say this: we need them for economic security,” he told reporters on Jan. 7.
The incoming U.S. president has repeatedly floated the idea of the United States assuming control over Greenland, which is currently an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. He also positioned the Panama Canal–linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans–as a vital strategic and economic interest of the United States that is at risk of being taken over by communist Chinese interests….