I am increasingly sure that no one (very few people) has ever really paid attention to US President-Elect Donald Trump in a way that matters. This is nowhere more apparent to me than in the current discourse regarding Trump’s interest in acquiring the territory of Greenland and re-acquiring the previously ceded territory around the Panama Canal. Why? Because if people had bothered to read The Art of the Deal, or ever even talk to a businessman, they’d know that businessmen negotiate while politicians (for the last three generations of them so its entrenched now) dictate.
Am I saying that politicians never compromise? No of course not, and I am of course speaking in generalities, but when politicians compromise on some bill it never results in mutual advantage, just which party’s constituents are having their pockets turned out more than the other side. A businessman, on the other hand, wants advantage, sure, but will obtain a win–win when able.
The Big Ask
Reading The Art of the Deal reveals the term “the Big Ask.” If you’re a businessman and negotiate a lot, or a lawyer like me, you’re already familiar with this idea. You anchor negotiations at some high point that you know the other side would never rationally agree to (but one that, if your negotiation partner were foolish and just accepted it, you’d be quite happy with anyway) with the knowing expectation that you’ll settle the issue for far south of where you opened negotiations. I send out demand letters all the time with demands far above where my client and I know we’ll eventually settle. That’s how demand letters work.
Politicians seem unfamiliar with this idea, however. They see “Trump wants Greenland” and feverishly imagine legions of goosestepping polar bears painted orange taking over Nuuk to build a new Trump Tower there, shiny and gold.
Of course, if the Danes and the Greenlanders agree to a change in sovereignty, Trump would be happy with that. So would I. Territorial expansion is one of the few objective measurements that show a state is dynamic and growing rather than stagnating and dying. Green lines on the economic charts don’t hold a candle to the colors of the map changing, and anyone (young Barron Trump included) who has played a wargame can tell you that. Of course, the taboo against territorial expansion is one of the pillars of the post-World War II international order, but as Senator Marco Rubio noted recently, that order is dying. It’s in is death spasms and not quite gone, but it’s not coming back.
Hard to imagine the Kingdom of Denmark would hand over one of its biggest territories. Far more likely, Copenhagen and Washington would come to some kind of settlement. Trump has hinted at many ideas that are not quite as flashy and dramatic — although they would be just as revolutionary to world politics. Things like putting pressure on the EU to fund a European army and take care of itself instead of grifting off of the US defense budget. Things like long leases on more bases than just Thule Air Base to cover changing sea lanes and the growing space industry. Things like a common economic zone with the people of Greenland — a people who share with Americans both Native American and European heritage — to bridge a gap between the old world and the new. You know, stuff that grows American power, which Trump really does care about.
I don’t think Trump genuinely expects Greenland to happen. He expects negotiation, not capitulation. Those who are in hysterics thinking that Trump does expect capitulation are not engaging honestly with Trump but projecting their fears onto a man who has been in politics, open about his tactics and strategies and aims, since he came down that escalator a decade ago.
So what about the canal?
Let’s turn our eyes from the great white north to the most valuable 51 miles of waterway in the western hemisphere, the Panama Canal. While it is not quite as valuable as the Suez Canal, it’s also right there. What’s more, America owned it within your lifetime, or at least within the lifetimes of your parents — and certainly within the lifetime of Trump.
Critics such as Senator Strom Thurmond lambasted the decision of President Jimmy Carter to give the canal zone away as shortsighted, stupid and driven by decolonial fervor. This has only been borne out since and Trump has lambasted Carter’s decisions for a long time. Trump seems genuinely upset that the canal was given away, given its over $3 billion annual value, and I take his stated goal of reacquiring it physically much more seriously than I do Greenland.
The US does not need sovereignty to achieve its goals in Greenland, but there’s little other way to be sure of a secure waterway through the Isthmus of Panama. A person on standing on the bank of the canal could wreck super-freighters with small explosive arms. This goes especially after the last few years have shown what small arms and drones can do to obstruct trade through the Red Sea. No, Panama must be controlled physically to have any chance of secure trade across the Isthmus.
Territorial acquisition is back on the table, globally speaking. Russia is currently winning a territorial war in eastern Europe. We know that Trump doesn’t find the idea of territorial acquisitions as gut-wrenchingly, reflexively intolerable as the bureaucrats and the Washington establishment do. Devotees of managed democracy enjoyers have been hand-holding the world through the last century saying, “We just don’t do that anymore!” to the idea of acquiring sovereignty over land. But we know that there are genuine strategic interests in acquiring both territories, Greenland and the canal zone. There is really no good reason why it is not on the table to acquire either territory, by any means. The only reason not to would be a deal that is better. I don’t know what will happen; I’m not on the negotiation teams. But I do know that Trump’s negotiators twisted Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s arm into negotiating over Gaza on the Sabbath.
Trump 2 is a different ball game from Trump 1. Perhaps it’s time to invest in Greenland and Panama futures.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
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