Panama? Greenland? Canada? What is Trump Hiding?
The master of distraction is putting in plenty of practice before his inauguration. Why?
LONDON, 24 December 2024
President-elect Trump—not this time Musk—was busy making wild announcements over the weekend. It started with a demand that America take over the Panama Canal because “the fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous…” He may think that, but the fees are set by the operating company, run by the Panamanian government, and not by Donald J. Trump. He was suggesting that America would take control. How? By force?
After the proclamation about the canal, he moved north of the Arctic Circle to Greenland. In 2019, Trump demanded that Greenland be sold to the United States due to its strategic importance to the country. Although Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, he asked the Danish rather than the Greenlanders. He spoke to the wrong people. They all said no anyway.
This weekend, he did it again:
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."
~ Donald Trump
Needless to say, the Prime Minister of Greenland responded:
“Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland."
~ Múte Bourup Egede
Although part of the North American continent, geopolitically, the island is part of Europe. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is not part of the United States, although the country maintains a military airbase there.
So, here is the question: why is Trump making such outlandish comments about Panama and Greenland? Last week, he was after Canada as well. None of this can be taken seriously, so why the bluster?
With Trump being so vocal about entirely impractical things, the mainstream media is in its usual frenzy. There is little news to report in the few days before the Christmas holidays, so every item can be blown out of proportion to fill newsprint and news websites. It makes noise, and everyone looks “over here.”
Is something being hidden? Is there news that Trump wants to distract the world from? The president-elect is a master of distraction—“over here” to take eyes and ears away from “over there.”
Perhaps the “over there” is the report from the U.S. Ethics Committee, alleging that Trump supporter Matt Gaetz had underage sex and used illegal drugs while in office. That reflects poorly on Trump’s initial choice to offer Gaetz the attorney general post in his next administration. Although Gaetz later declined, the offer was made while it was clear that an ethics committee investigation was underway. The news headlines on Monday were full of the report about Gaetz, so perhaps that wasn’t the distraction.
What else might it be?
In the past couple of weeks, media attention has focused on Elon Musk and his appointment by Trump to streamline government and save money. The media frenzy has been almost entirely on the SpaceX boss rather than the president-elect. Many memes, social media posts, and even mainstream media publications have joked about “President-elect Musk and his sidekick, VP-elect Trump.” That will have damaged Trump's ego, where, in his mind, he is the most important person on the planet—not some jumped-up billionaire who builds rocket ships and expensive cars.
Maybe we are still wide of the mark on distraction. Could it be last Friday’s deadline on the budget cap, where Trump was as vocal as ever? Maybe.
It’s been a busy week in Trump’s brain, with Panama, Greenland, Musk, budgets, and more—all before he is handed the keys to the Oval Office in just under a month. The worrying question is, if the noisy distractions are not one of the suggestions made here, what might it be? And should the world be worried that we missed whatever it was?
Yes, quite probably.