PALM BEACH: Donald Trump threatened economic force against neighbouring Canada and military action to secure the Panama Canal in a meandering press conference on Tuesday, a day after Congress certified his election victory.

The US president-elect had gathered reporters in southern Florida to announce a $20 billion Emirati investment in US technology, but his remarks quickly became a rally-style rant as he returned at length to many of his campaign themes.

“Since we won the election, the whole perception of the whole world is different. People from other countries have called me. They said, ‘Thank you, thank you’,” Trump said as he set out his agenda for the coming four years.

But the president-elect hammered President Joe Biden over the transition, claiming that the White House was “trying everything they can to make it more difficult”.

Trump, 78, has not acknowledged his 2020 defeat and refused to participate in the transfer of power to Biden.

Says he’d ‘seize’ Panama Canal and rename Gulf of Mexico as ‘Gulf of America’

On the international stage, the incoming president announced he was planning to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and threatened the US’s southern neighbour with massive tariffs if it does not halt illegal entries across the border.

He refused to rule out using the military to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal — both of which he has long coveted — repeating his criticism of the decision to allow local control of the Central American waterway by then-president Jimmy Carter, who died last month.

Asked if he would use military force to bring Canada to heel, the incoming president said “no, economic force”.

As with many of his pronouncements, it was difficult at times to separate humour or bombast from genuine policy, but Trump said eliminating the “artificially drawn” US-Canada border would be a boon to national security.

Inauguration

He hammered President Joe Biden over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and his foreign policy in Ukraine and Syria, repeating a familiar false claim that America “had no wars” in his first term.

“We defeated ISIS (the militant Islamic State group). We had no wars. Now I’m going into a world that’s burning with Russia and Ukraine and Israel,” Trump said.

Much of the event was focused on criticism of Biden, whom Trump baselessly accused of being behind the multiple legal challenges he faces, including the possible release of a federal report into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and sentencing set for Friday in his New York hush money case.

The Republican billionaire, who returns to the White House on Jan 20, hit his rival on inflation and vowed to overturn the Democrat’s executive order banning offshore oil and gas development.

The press conference came a day after Congress counted and certified Trump’s state-by-state electoral college votes, officially naming him the next president.

Trump has promised to pardon many of his supporters who stormed Congress and was asked if that would extend to people who had assaulted police. He dodged the question and claimed falsely that the crowd at the Capitol had been unarmed.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2025