President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out the idea of using the military to take Greenland and the Panama Canal during a press conference on Tuesday.
Asked by a reporter if he could “assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion,” Trump interjected to answer “No.”
“Can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold a vote? What is the strategy?” asked the reporter to conclude his question.
“I can’t assure you — you’re talking about Panama and Greenland — no, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this: We need them for economic security,” answered Trump. “The Panama Canal was built for our military-”
When the reporter interrupted to clarify if he would rule out using the military, Trump replied, “I’m not going to commit to that, no. It might be that you’ll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country. It’s being operated by China! China! And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn’t give it to China. And they’ve abused it, they’ve abused that gift.”
He continued:
It
should have never been made, by the way. Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion. More so maybe than the hostages. The hostages were a big deal, But if you remember, and nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now because you know, it’s inappropriate, I guess, because it’s a bad part of of the Carter legacy. But he was a good man. Look, he was a good man, I knew him a little bit and he was a very fine person. But that was a big mistake. Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake. We lost 38,000 people, it cost us the equivalent of $1 trillion, maybe more than that, probably the most expensive, they say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which I guess you can, ever built. And giving that away was a horrible thing. And I believe that’s why Jimmy Carter lost the election even more so than the hostages.
Watch above via Fox News.