Trump’s Panama, Greenland gambits: A bold idea few are really asking forAmericans -- and even most Republicans -- aren’t really on board with Trump’s newfound expansionism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/23/trumps-panama-greenland-gambits-bold-idea-few-are-really-asking/t has been nearly 80 years since the United States expanded its territory, and there are increasing signs that President Donald Trump intends to change that. After what seemed in his first term like a lark about claiming Greenland, Trump has doubled down on that and other expansionist ideas.
He devoted a large segment of his inaugural address this week to retaking the Panama Canal and even invoked the concept of manifest destiny — the idea that U.S. expansion is inevitable and a divine right.
He signed an executive order seeking to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. He keeps talking about making Canada the 51st state. He’s reportedly sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Panama. And Senate Republicans are now looking at how to implement his plans.
Perhaps it’ll all work out, and history will come to regard this territorial expansion as a significant part of Trump’s legacy.
But this is not what Americans are asking of their new president. Nor does it seem even many Republicans are begging for it. Americans just don’t seem to share in Trump’s sudden expansionist ideals, at least yet.
A growing volume of polls have asked about this in recent weeks. Almost without fail, they show Americans opposed it. And even those who do want it don’t feel that strongly.
To the extent people like these ideas, taking the Panama Canal appears to be the clear winner. But even that’s hardly a crowd-pleaser.
Economist-YouGov polling showed Americans opposed “seeking ownership” of the Panama Canal by nine percentage points (42 percent to 33 percent), Greenland by 19 points (47-28) and Canada by 42 points (60-18).
They even opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico by a wide margin — 55-24.
Polling from Reuters and Ipsos released this week asked in some more specific ways, and the margins were even worse for Trump’s aspirations. Americans:
Opposed retaking control of the Panama Canal by 18 points (47-29).
Opposed pressuring Denmark to sell Greenland by 42 points (58-16).
Opposed having Canada join as the 51st state by 49 points (64-15).You also see the resistance when you ask about expansionism more broadly.
The Reuters-Ipsos poll asked whether the United States has the “right to expand its territory in the Western Hemisphere,” and Americans opposed that by 30 points (51-21). This is basically an analog for the concept of manifest destiny that Trump mentioned in his inaugural address.
And a USA Today-Suffolk University poll recently showed this just isn’t a huge priority for Americans. While 4 in 10 said claiming Greenland and the Panama Canal was a “good idea,” just 11 percent said the Trump administration should do everything possible to make it happen.
The rest instead called it “not realistic.” A majority said it was a “bad idea.”
That’s a far cry from Trump’s posture; he recently called taking Greenland an “absolute necessity.” He’s even left open the idea of using military threats, something that has almost no support. (Though 12 percent support taking the Panama Canal by force in the YouGov poll; it’s less for Canada and Greenland.)
Perhaps most striking in the numbers is that this doesn’t even seem to have penetrated in Trump’s party. The only idea that got majority-Republican support in the polling is taking the Panama Canal, but just 29 percent agreed with that idea “strongly” in the Reuters-Ipsos poll. Only 8 percent of Republicans felt “strongly” about pressuring Denmark to sell Greenland. And just 39 percent of Republicans agreed that the United States has the “right” to expand its territory.
Republicans even opposed making Canada the 51st state — an idea Trump re-upped Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — by a wide margin, 54-26.
This appears to be the least-serious of Trump’s proposals — it’s hard to tell if it’s a joke or not — but that would seem telling.
And to be clear, it’s not as if Americans are opposed to changing the makeup of our country, full stop. The same Economist-YouGov poll showed Americans supported making Washington, D.C., a state, 39-33, and making Puerto Rico a state, 45-28.
It’s just that they don’t seem to like Trump’s ideas for it. It looks like he has a sales job not just with Panama and Denmark, but with the American people.
Trump declines to rule out ‘military or economic’ force to expand U.S.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/07/trump-expansion-greenland-gulf-of-mexico/
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