(Bloomberg) -- In the space of an hour, President-elect Donald Trump called for absorbing Canada, declined to rule out using military force to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland, demanded NATO allies spend 5% of GDP on defense and vowed “all hell would break loose” in the Middle East if Hamas doesn’t release Israeli hostages before he takes office.
And he promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“What a beautiful name — and it’s appropriate,” Trump told a news conference Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
He didn’t explain how any of these improbable pledges would come to pass, beyond threatening to impose tariffs on nations, including Denmark, that don’t cooperate. But the rambling session erased any doubt that Trump plans to take foreign policy to new precedent-shattering levels when he takes office in less than two weeks.
For anyone keeping track, Panama has already vowed not to give up the canal, and Denmark says it has no plans to cede control of Greenland. Trump didn’t mention that the US hasn’t spent 5% of GDP on defense since the 1980s. (The current figure is about 3%.)
But the rhetoric all fits with a far more emboldened stance, to say and do almost whatever he wants given the mandate he believes he received for a second term after winning both the popular and electoral votes.
If Trump’s foreign policy approach in his first term flirted with trolling the rest of the world, he’s taking it to a new level this time around — and well before his second term even starts.
The maximalist positions hold appeal for a president who has openly expressed respect for autocrats including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Whether or not there’s a strategy this time remains an open question.
“I wouldn’t presume to have any visibility into whether he’s just saying stuff for attention or whether he actually thinks these are practical policies that he’s going to enact,” said Kori Schake, director of defense and foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute. “I do think he probably means what he says.”
No US president has overseen the expansion of American territory since 1947, when President Harry Truman oversaw the acquisition of the several small Pacific Ocean island chains from Japan in the aftermath of World War II.
Halfway through his news conference on Tuesday, Trump summoned his appointed Middle East envoy, real estate investor and golf buddy Steve Witkoff, to the stage.
“If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East,” Trump said of the hostages being held by Hamas.
Witkoff told the crowd he planned to depart for the region Tuesday night and indicated that negotiations were already underway. He said he was “really hopeful that by the inauguration we’ll have some good things to announce on behalf of the president.”
Amid the speculation about Greenland, his son Donald Jr. flew to Nuuk, the territory’s capital, for what he described as nothing more than a day trip. But Don Jr. brought Trump’s anointed head of presidential personnel, Sergio Gor, and popular right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk along for the trip.
Some members of the group wore “Trump Force One” jackets with their names embroidered on the lapel. And in a meeting with residents of Nuuk, Don Jr. got his dad on the phone to say a few words.
“We need security, our country needs it and the whole world needs it,” Trump told the group. “You’re so strategically located.”
Can Trump Buy Greenland? What to Know Besides ‘No’: QuickTake
Already, the responses were swift.
“My message to incoming President Trump is that first and foremost Canada will never be the 51st state of the U.S.,” Pierre Poilievre, the conservative Canadian lawmaker who may become the country’s next prime minister, said in a video posted to X. And outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that “there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”
In Denmark, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rebuffed Trump’s wish to take control of Greenland but called for closer ties.
Working it all out is almost beside the point. The fact that leaders like Poilievre and Frederiksen even engaged the issue underscored how Trump is already shaping the narrative in the way he wants, according to Vali Nasr, professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University.
“What he’s really signaling is he’s not beholden to the rules of the game,” Nasr said. “Yes, he’s trolling these countries but he’s also really trolling the establishment, and you see he gets a rise out them every time.”
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.