> I’m looking at a least a 10 year time horizon. Trump has talked about taking over Greenland, Gaza, Canada and Panama.
I'm confused, how does a 10 year time horizon make Panama look more stable w.r.t. Trump's threat? Wouldn't it be worse? If negative impact on Panama is going to unfold, I'd expect it to be more painful over the long term than the short term, not less.
I think their point was a military incursion is just as likely in Panama as Canada Greenland and Gaza. Can you honestly picture boots on the ground in any one of these? The man is the definition of “mouth writes checks he can’t cash”
> I think their point was a military incursion is just as likely in Panama as Canada Greenland and Gaza. Can you honestly picture boots on the ground in any one of these?
Military is irrelevant here. You don't need boots on the ground to throw a country into chaos. Did Russia and China send soldiers on American soil to make the US as unstable as it is right now (...leading to people's desires to seek a more stable country)?
The concern was regarding stability, healthcare, etc. which means economic and political stability. How stable do you think Panama would be in (say) an economic war with the US that is focused on controlling their canal? What if the US decides to covertly influence their government (or worse)?
But to answer your question directly anyway: for Canada he specifically said "economic force", not military. For Gaza, he said Israel would handle the military aspect and hand it over. For Greenland, the military is already there, but also it's not like they would meet any resistance via combat there. For Panama... it seems unlikely but it's also hard to put anything past him. Not because of his word, but because his actions are just so unpredictable.
> Did Russia and China send soldiers on American soil to make the US as unstable as it is right now
Wait a minute. We did this to ourselves. Of course do Russia and China meddle in the USA's infosphere (just like we meddle in their infospheres), but there are always two involved: those meddling and those believing it. I mean, Reptiloids, blood-harvesting, Pizzagate... Seriously, what would China have to put in your china to make you gullible enough to believe that? Yet there are obviously people out there that do believe. It made headlines!
Unlike China or Russia it still matters in the USA what the population believes. Thus we, as members of the general public, regardless of our political leaning, cannot exculpate us from the state of the nation by pointing at some foreign power and say "they made me do it". As an expat I thought, I could keep out of it, but I can't. We have to face up to the fact that all of this is our doing and nobody forced us to do it.
> Wait a minute. We did this to ourselves. Of course do Russia and China meddle in the USA's infosphere (just like we meddle in their infospheres), but there are always two involved
I have no clue what this has to do with the current discussion. Yes, there are two involved. Panamanians could also become similarly involved in any instability the US decides to sow there. How does that imply Panama is going to be stable? Are you under the impression that Panamanians are somehow immune to to this?
It's not that he threatens things he can't go through with. It's that he presents himself as unhinged and capable of any sort of messed up thing. So when he says he's going to send troops to Panama to retake the canal, he probably doesn't expect he'd ever actually do it. But Panama's government can't be sure, so when Trump asks for something perhaps a bit more "reasonable" than returning the canal to US control, Panama will look at that as better than risking a military incursion, and capitulate.
This has already happened with lower-stakes stuff, like the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods that Trump never even put into effect once he announced them but immediately got concessions from Canada and Mexico. Whether or not those concessions are actually useful or will materialize is another matter, but that's almost irrelevant: Trump knows he can push them around now, and pretty easily at that.
> But many of those outside the White House looking at the tariffs drama say little was accomplished, arguing that the measures taken by the two U.S. neighbors were already in place or likely could have been achieved without Trump’s ultimatums. Even the financial markets seemed to shrug off the showdown with a modest sell-off on Monday.
