Trump kicks off rambling press conference by airing grievances — then starts threatening U.S. allies

Trump suggests he could use force — economic or military — to turn American allies into vassal states

With less than two weeks until he’s once again ensconced in the Oval Office, Donald Trump opened his first press conference of 2025 in his usual style — with a laundry list of grievances against his political nemesis Joe Biden.

The former president turned president-elect had ostensibly called a small group of reporters from a hand-picked selection of news outlets to his Mar-a-Lago residence to announce a new $20 billion investment in American data centers by an Emirati billionaire, Hussain Sajwani, with whom his eponymous real estate and hospitality firm has partnered on several Trump-branded projects in the Persian Gulf region.

After pledging to ensure that any facilities built as a part of the project would get “expedited review” for permitting and unspecified exemptions from environmental regulations, Trump began accusing President Joe Biden of sabotaging the transition process by using rarely-invoked presidential authority to permanently shield 625 acres of ocean floor from oil drilling efforts. He accused Biden of attempting to “block the reforms of the American people and that they voted for” and claimed that the president’s actions, which legal experts say would take an act of Congress to overturn, “will not stand,” pledging to reverse them “immediately” even though he may not have the authority to do so legally.

He also blamed the 46th president for a host of ills, real or imagined, some new, some familiar.

He repeated old grievances about windmills (which he has claimed are responsible for mass bird death and cancer) with a new twist about how their blades are not easily recyclable and blamed Biden for low water pressure in modern showers. He also suggested that the incumbent is somehow in favor of banning natural gas-powered heat and forcing electric heat upon unwilling Americans, and at one point offered up a bizarre — and completely fictitious — assertion that members of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamic militant group, were present at the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol (rather than his own supporters).

Trump threatened to use his tariff policies as ‘economic force’ to coerce Canada into giving up sovereignty and becoming part of the U.S. (AP)

The familiar complaints and attacks on Biden would have been par for the course for Trump, who essentially spent most of Biden’s term in office running a political operation meant to undermine his successor-turned-predecessor’s legitimacy and build support for his own return to the White House.

But Trump soon moved on from casting aspersions on the man he’ll replace in office later this month and turned to making veiled threats of war on some of America’s close allies.

It started with a non-sequitur about the Panama Canal, which was built by American forces more than a century ago and turned over to the Panamanian government at the turn of this century under terms of a treaty negotiated by the late 39th president, Jimmy Carter.

By coincidence, Trump began expounding on the treaty — one of Carter’s signature foreign policy successes — at the same moment that a military honor guard was preparing to load the late former president’s remains aboard one of the bespoke Boeing 747 aircraft used as presidential transports for a final trip to the nation’s capital. He accused Carter of having given away the canal and accused Panamanian authorities of turning over operation of the canal to the People’s Republic of China while overcharging American vessels to transit the canal.

Neither of Trump’s claims are grounded in fact. The canal is operated by Panamanians, and his suggestion that the U.S. is being somehow overcharged has roots in the president-elect’s longstanding belief that “fair” treatment means preferential treatment. But he ominously suggested that the canal’s status was “under discussion.”

Trump turned next to two more close American allies, Mexico and Canada, to again threaten to impose tariffs on imported goods from both nations notwithstanding the terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement he negotiated to much fanfare during his first four years in the White House.

Trump’s press conference was underway as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s casket was being transferred to Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)

He claimed that the U.S. is “not treated well” by both countries on account of trade deficits that are largely the result of market forces. But he went further with respect to America’s northern neighbor by stating that the U.S. is somehow “subsidizing Canada to the tune of about $200 billion a year, plus other things” and suggesting that Canada, one of the original members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, lacks a sufficiently large military to defend itself.

The president-elect has made attacking Canada a frequent feature of his rhetoric in recent weeks, often suggesting that the former British dominion turned Commonwealth nation could avoid tariffs by voting to replace Charles III as Canada’s head of state with the American president and becoming America’s 51st state.

He also suggested that America needs to acquire Greenland from Danish control for unspecified national security reasons, returning to a theme he’s expressed at times since his first term.

But when pressed on whether he would rule out using military force — violating the United Nations charter — to take control of Greenland and Panama, Trump repeatedly refused to do so.

“Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. I’ve been told that for a long time, long before I even ran I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time. You have approximately 45,000 people there. People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security,” he said.

Trump ominously suggested that the canal’s status was ‘under discussion.’ (AP)

Trump went further by suggesting that Denmark should give up any claim to Greenland and allow some sort of plebiscite on joining the U.S. — or face consequences for not doing so.

“If Denmark wants to get to a conclusion, but nobody knows if they even have any right title or interest, the people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States. But if they did, if they did do that, then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level,” he added.

Trump also threatened to use his tariff policies as “economic force” to coerce Canada into giving up sovereignty and becoming part of the U.S.

“That would really be something you get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security. Don’t forget, we basically protect Canada,” he said.

It’s unclear whether Trump is serious about pursuing coercive policies to force a trio of sovereign nations to give up their own right to self-determination.

But as he prepares to return to office, the incendiary comments represent a break from decades of American commitments to the post-Second World War international order in favor of an older paradigm, one where might makes right and where larger, more powerful countries can carve up the world into spheres of influence in which smaller nations are merely vassal states.

It’s not a big shift for Trump, who has long spoken of America’s alliances — particularly NATO — as protection rackets that provide too little value to the United States.

But for the rest of the world, the president-elect’s words could signal a reversion from the law of civilized nations to the law of the jungle.