Who's Getting Annexed?
Trump invites the neighbours to come over and stay awhile.
The lie is my expense
The scope of my desire
The Party blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
And the fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire…
Sleep now in the fire
Songwriters: Brad Wilk / Thomas Morello / Timothy Commerford / Zack De La Rocha.
As Donald Trump’s second term approaches, he focuses on the job at hand.
It’s not doing something about the fact that California is on fire, again - heck, those liberals don’t even vote for him. Neither is it seeking peace in Palestine or Ukraine; why would he wish to insult his good friends in Russia or Israel?
It’s obviously not gun control, access to healthcare, or even the cost of living on which he based his campaign.
This is not even a time for revenge against all who opposed him or made him look bad, whether politicians, journalists, or scientists. It’s time to let the world know who’s in charge, and I don’t mean Elon Musk.
Trump 2.0 is in an expansive mood, and it’s not down to Big Macs. Donald has his eyes on his neighbours, and you best believe he is coveting their assets. He might even grab them if they don’t appease him by handing themselves over willingly.
So, who’s getting annexed, and why? Let’s start with…
Reclaiming the Panama Canal
The Americans have always been reluctant to let the Panamanians run their own canal, a vital transport route between the Pacific and Atlantic, removing the need for a long and non-trivial journey around the bottom of South America.
The canal opened in 1914. In 1974, negotiations began over its return to Panamanian control, but the US finally returned control of the canal in 1999, a quarter of a century later.
Last month, a few days before Christmas, President-(re)Elect Donald Trump suggested that the US should retake control of the canal, claiming that the rates American ships were being charged were too high. The next day, he had another concern, saying the canal was “falling into the wrong hands” in reference to China.
This week, Trump is refusing to rule out both economic and military action in order to seize control of the canal in the interest of America’s “Economic Security”.
As ever, there are others willing to follow his lead unquestioningly. Like Republican Senator for Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, who, during an interview with Fox, said:
“We’ve gotta take the Panama Canal back; we’ve got to do something because if were gonna happen to go to war with China over Taiwan, and they were to shut the Panama Canal down, we’d have to go eight to 10 thousand miles longer just to get things back to the war zone if we had to go from the East Coast to China,”
I believe the phrase is “that escalated quickly.”
In just a couple of weeks, we’ve gone from concerns over shipping costs to control of the canal becoming critical for a future war with China. The guy hasn’t even been re-inaugurated yet.
Gulf of America?
If you’re finding this all a bit insane, the next bit probably won’t help, but it is at least a little amusing and should result in far less friendly fire for America’s allies than the other things.
Following the tradition of Freedom Fries, Trump wishes to impose his American-centric worldview by patriotically renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
“We're going to change because we do most of the work there, and it's ours. It's appropriate, and Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country," Trump said yesterday in a news conference that would’ve been bizarre by anyone else’s standards.
The President of Mexico responded with a sad acknowledgement of Trump’s aggressive rhetoric by gently suggesting that rather than renaming the Gulf, America itself might be more aptly named in honour of Mexico.
Some have speculated that rather than the “Gulf”, Trump actually means, “Golf of America” and that the whole thing is a promotion of his golf courses. Mostly because that sounds less ridiculous than what’s actually happening.
Greenland
Obviously, you can’t build a golf course in the middle of the ocean. You need land for one of those—green land. Do you think anyone has told Donald that Greenland isn’t Green like a golf course; it’s more white like a Trump rally?
In addition to his other threats, Trump yesterday refused to rule out using military force to make Greenland part of the US and threatened Denmark, which Greenland is an autonomous part of, with “very high” tariffs if it gets in his way.
In fairness to Trump, this isn’t the first time that the US has turned its expansionist eye towards this arctic region with a population slightly lower than that of Rotorua.
In 1867, the US explored the possibility of buying Greenland, and possibly Iceland, but Congress opposed the move.
Then, in 1946, they offered Denmark $100m for Greenland, which was rejected.
In 1953, Greenland was made an equal part of the Danish Kingdom, and home rule was granted in 1979.
Now Trump says Denmark should cede Greenland to the US in order to “protect the free world,” and he will slap them with tariffs bigly if they resist.
So Greenland is apparently to be consumed by the USA in order to protect the free world. Think about that logic for a moment.
It seems that the world's freedom is less contingent on any strategic importance this land mass might hold but more so on everyone doing exactly what Trump and his mate Elon say, and not asking any bloody questions.
Mark Zuckerburg from Facebook got the memo, said, “No worries, El Presidente; no more fact-checking from us”, and happily looked away. Not that he’d been watching that closely, to begin with, of course.
Oh Canada
If Panama is the Rhineland in this analogy, and Greenland is the Sudetenland, does that make Canada the Poland of this revision of history?
Trump is making increasingly aggressive overtures towards Canada, one of America’s closest allies, and, in the wake of the resignation of Justin Trudeau, has wasted no time suggesting Canadians would be better off being acquired by the US.
Funnily enough, those north of the border have rejected his overtures; nobody wants to be grabbed by the Donald.
Unlike those in Panama and Greenland, Canadians can take solace in Trump's statement that he would only use economic pressure to annex their country and transform it into the 51st state. So, isn’t that nice? He is merely threatening to starve his neighbour and close friend into submission rather than actually invading them.
It all raises the question of - Who’s next? Which poor unfortunate nation will take Trump’s interest? Somewhere in Europe perhaps? Or what about the Pacific?
So what’s the good news?
Apart from the fact that we’re a long way away and unlikely to appear high on any hit list Trump has, we can sit back and luxuriate in our appeasement, happy in the knowledge that, according to our government, these are the “good guys” anyway.
Whether it be Key or Luxon, both of whom appear quite relaxed with Trump being in power, the leaders of the National Party have been desperate for decades to remake our nation in America’s image.
More guns - check. Brainwash the population into thinking that Socialism is Communism and unpatriotic - check. Privatise healthcare - oh boy, they can hardly wait.
So rest assured, Kiwis. We may not become the 52nd state or even the 62nd, but the coalition will eventually get us there. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.
A cunning plan?
Perhaps I’m underestimating them, maybe the whole thing has been a ruse, and National and ACT are turning us into an American-friendly enclave in the South Pacific in the hope Trump forgets we’re not already part of America and ignores us.
I mean, have you considered that rather than being sycophantic sucking up, all of Luxon’s ass-kissing with the Americans is actually a powerful strategy to remain independent? It’s not a theory I’d previously considered, and do you know why?
Because it’s absolute bollocks, these guys would sell their own grandmothers to the highest bidder, let alone the rest of us.
On that note, have a great day, all you lovely people, and try not to do anything that might attract Donald Trump's attention. 🙂
To finish, Rage Against the Machine with an ode to America - Sleep Now in the Fire.
Like mould spreading on a Petri dish, Trump is toxic…
It reads like satire - but is unfortunately true. And extremely scary for a lot of people.