Trump's expansionist plans reek of diversionary tactics

Based on Donald Trump's commentaries during the United States presidential election campaign last year, there was a broad consensus that Trump 2.0 would be much different from the experience of Trump 1.0.

However, few could have predicted the types of issues that would become the front and center as the president-elect prepared for his inauguration scheduled on Jan 20.

An examination of Trump's remarks in which he highlighted his interest in gaining control of Greenland, retaking control of the Panama Canal, renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America", and annexing Canada as the 51st US state has sparked both surprise and shock in the US as well as among the country's traditional allies in Europe, North America and other regions.

With so many pressing global issues on the table for the president-elect, why would he single out these as the key focus of his emerging foreign policy agenda? Even some of his domestic political supporters seem to have a difficult time figuring out where all of this is headed.

A cursory scan of the foreign policy challenges facing Trump 2.0 reveals a series of issues and problems that will necessarily require huge amounts of time and resources to ensure we are not brought to the precipice of World War III.

Even if we don't get overly consumed with the conflicts regarding Ukraine and Russia, across the Middle East, and the evolution of the situation in the Korean Peninsula, the president-elect will still have his hands full.

In addition, Trump will have to face the growing problems engendered by a more acute stage of climate change, the possibility of another pandemic, the threat of rising inflation across the US and beyond, and the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence that could be a possible game changer in terms of management of economic and financial affairs, let alone military affairs.

In other words, why spend time and energy on issues that seemingly lack strategic significance and will likely only serve to exacerbate tensions with countries that do not threaten the US from a defense or any other perspective?

Is there rhyme or reason behind these remarks? On the surface, there are not many substantive foreign policy drivers for this kind of adventure, especially when there are so many other pressing issues to be addressed.

One answer might be that these are superfluous topics and Trump's real intention is to divert both public and media attention from the hearings associated with his Cabinet nominations.

His choices are reflecting a preference for loyalty versus expertise, which is making many people in Congress, including some within his own Republican Party, somewhat nervous.

Three of his nominees seem to be in trouble from the moment they were announced: Kash Patel as FBI director, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. They have already sparked controversies due to their lack of relevant experience.

Two others — Robert Kennedy Jr as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and Mehmet Oz as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — have also attracted critical comments from both parties.

With their respective hearings already underway and their FBI background reports beginning to circulate, Trump may simply want to create a diversion to shift attention from the critical reviews that will occur soon.

Once Trump started speaking about annexing Greenland or making Canada the 51st state, the situation regarding his Cabinet nominations quickly disappeared from the headlines, especially after the leaders of Greenland, Denmark and Canada began to respond to his proposals.

One thing's for sure, Trump knows how to utilize the media for his specific purposes; he is a master at directing and redirecting attention to where he wants it to go. This means we cannot discount the possibility that there is less geopolitical substance behind his ideas and more domestic political intrigue.

From a historical perspective, if Trump is indeed serious about his suggested actions vis-a-vis Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico, it would possibly portend a new era of US jingoism.

The notion that "America gets what America wants" smacks of the country's 19th century adventuresome foreign policy. Trump's proposed actions are not akin to the ideas that underpinned Manifest Destiny, which resulted in the integration of the US from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Nor does the acquisition of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867 align well. Even the so-called Louisiana Purchase in 1803 does not fit well with the things Trump has been discussing.

First, they were part of a different era, and second, at the time there were strong geographical philosophical and ideological imperatives underpinning the idea of building out the United States of America.

It should be clear that the president-elect's verbiage surrounding his very controversial proposals is meant to be provocative, and perhaps nothing more. Greenland, for example, already hosts a US military base under the auspices of the US Space Command. This base is tied to the North American Aerospace Defense Command's global network of sensors for defending against potential missile attacks. Denmark and Greenland have already shown willingness to entertain proposals for expanding the US presence if there is sufficient strategic rationale.

The Panama Canal is not under any kind of Chinese control or threat, political or otherwise, and thus the arguments offered by Trump about the security of the canal are simply unfounded.

And Canada has no interest in becoming a part of the US for whatever reason. "The joke is over," Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said. "It's a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen."

The key point is that these ideas were for the most part never anticipated by anyone following the foreign policy and national security interests of the US going forward. They also set a bad precedent and may embolden other countries in actual or potential territorial seizures.

It is time to shift focus onto the real pressing issues that the US is facing and mobilize the minds of "the best and the brightest" to ameliorate existing conflicts regarding Ukraine and Israel, and prevent new conflicts in other regions.

The president-elect would be wise to avoid unnecessary provocations, especially toward traditional allies, so that the US can remain strong and credible and is able to play a constructive role in world affairs. Affairs that support the country's national interests and do not damage the security umbrella that has protected the US and its allies since the end of World War II.

The author is a nonresident fellow at Quincy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, DC, and a senior lecturer at the Asian Pacific Studies Institute of Duke University.