‘It’s ironic’: how climate crisis is driving Trump push on Greenland and Panama
Share:
What the president-elect calls a ‘giant hoax’ is changing the strategic calculus in the Arctic and for the Panama canal. Donald Trump’s desire to seize control of Greenland and the Panama canal is being shaped in part by a force that he has sought to deny even exists – the climate crisis.
![[A cargo ship traverses the Agua Clara Locks of the Panama canal in Colon, Panama.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/42b436b07718fd2be9cde7d15640cdf6a9e62f7a/0_0_6804_4536/master/6804.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Last week, Trump ramped up his demands that the United States annex both Greenland and the Panama canal, refusing to rule out economic or even military interventions to take them and threatening “very high” tariffs upon Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous territory, if it opposes him.
“We need them for economic security,” Trump said. “The Panama canal is vital to our country, it’s being operated by China. China! We gave the Panama canal to Panama, not China.” The US president-elect added that Greenland was required for “national security purposes” and that Denmark “should give it up”.
Trump’s rhetoric has been denounced by other world leaders but the rationale for this expansionism is being influenced, experts say, by something affecting both Greenland and Panama – rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
Even though the incoming US president has called climate change a “giant hoax”, his son Donald Jr acknowledged the value of mining rare minerals in Greenland that are being uncovered as the ice rapidly retreats from the vast Arctic island. Greenland’s enormous ice sheet is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, raising sea levels and potentially collapsing vital ocean currents.
