What If Trump Were to Rule Like Putin?
His focus on Canada, Greenland and Panama looks a lot like Russia’s approach to its “near abroad.”
Then-US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to their meeting in Helsinki in 2018.
Photographer: Heikki Saukkomaa/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump has refused to rule out using force to acquire Greenland from Denmark or the Panama Canal from Panama. Don’t rule out that he might just mean it.
The mere thought that America would extort or go to war with a close NATO ally to illegally change their sovereign borders seems ridiculous. Presumably, it is. Yet the threats also sound familiar. As the president-elect and some of his team members warm up for the White House, they’re speaking and behaving more like President Vladimir Putin’s Russia by the day.