On Thursday, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said that she didn’t believe President-elect Donald Trump intends to use military force to seize control of Greenland or the Panama Canal, saying she read his comments more as a warning to China and other global players to keep their hands off such important interests.
“I think we can exclude that the United States in the coming years will try to use force to annex territory that interests it,” said Meloni, who travelled last weekend to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate and intends to attend his inauguration. Rather, she said, Trump’s comments were a message to some other big global players more than any hostile claim over these countries. She identified increased Chinese protagonism in the commercially important Panama Canal and resource-rich Greenland as being behind Trump’s warning, and said she interpreted his words as part of a long-distance debate between great powers.
Meloni was speaking at an annual news conference during which she was peppered with questions about her relations with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. She confirmed she hoped to attend Trump’s inauguration January 20, but was checking her agenda before confirming her presence. “If I can I will gladly participate,” she said. Trump on Tuesday said he wouldn’t rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland which he declared to be vital to American national security.
Analysts say such rhetoric could embolden America’s enemies by suggesting the U.S. is now OK with countries using force to redraw borders at a time when Russia is pressing forward with its invasion of Ukraine and China is threatening Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. Meloni has been a firm supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, and said she didn’t think the Trump administration would abandon Kyiv.
Trump had boasted during the US presidential campaign that he could end the war in one day, raising questions about whether the United States will continue to be Ukraine’s biggest and most important military backer.
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