Why Would the US Want Canada as a 51st State?

There's method in the madness of Trump's recent outrageous statements claiming interest in expanding US territory to include Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

- Jonathan Eyal

He never seems to give up. Minutes after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Jan 6, Donald Trump publicly repeated his hope that Canada might consider joining the 50 states that currently make up the United States. "Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State," Trump wrote on Truth Social, his preferred online platform.

There is not a shred of evidence that this is true. Nor is there any proof that politicians or ordinary citizens in Denmark are interested in selling Greenland, the massive Arctic island which Trump claims to be interested in buying.

And, unsurprisingly, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has dismissed Trump's demands that he should "hand back" control of the Panama Canal to the US as "nonsense".

"The Canal is Panamanian and belongs to Panamanians. There is no possibility of opening any kind of conversation around this reality," Mr Mulino said.

Yet the man who in less than a fortnight from now will again sit in the White House's Oval Office persists in making outlandish demands on the territories and even the independence of other nations.

That is partly because Donald Trump never allowed fundamental realities to stand in the way of his claims. As Ms Kellyanne Conway, his old campaign manager, once memorably put it, when confronted with evidence contradicting his beliefs, Trump opts for "alternative facts".

But it is also because the US President-elect has perfected the art of making outrageous demands, which he knows are fanciful but which nonetheless change the terms of a public debate about what Trump believes to be in America's favour. There is a logic behind this apparent madness of threatening to buy, seize or annex the territories of other countries.

U.S.-CANADIAN RELATIONS