Donald Trump intends to violate the constition he said he would protect and absolutley intends to create sedition

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Thomas Friedman:

Late-night comedians have had a field day with Donald Trump’s musings about his administration possibly seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Hahahahahaha! Oh, that Trump — such a funny guy — you never know what will come out of his mouth next.  (NOT❗)

Pay no attention. You know him, he’ll just say something else outrageous tomorrow!

Well, I’ll tell you who I am certain is paying attention: President Xi Jinping of China. If the U.S. president can decide that he wants to seize Greenland and explicitly refuses to rule out the use of force to do so, that is like a giant permission slip for China to seize Taiwan, which has strong emotional, historical, linguistic and national connections to mainland China.

Trump lies continue

It took only a few days after Trump’s remarks for this joke to start circulating among China specialists:

Question: “What does Xi Jinping feel when Trump starts talking about taking Greenland and the Panama Canal?”

Answer: “Hungry” — for Taiwan.

Trump’s remarks are reckless stupidity beyond belief. Imagine what happens when his choice for ambassador to Beijing, David Perdue, takes up his post and, in response to some aggressive act by China toward Taiwan, goes to the Chinese Foreign Ministry to lodge a protest. What will the ministry say?

Presumably something like: “You come in here to protest our actions to reunite with Taiwan when your president is threatening to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal by force? We believe Taiwan is an integral part of China — a belief that while you do not share it, you acknowledged in the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué. What is your connection to Greenland? The fact that Donald Trump Jr. went there on vacation once? Tell your president that China and Russia have as much a claim to Greenland as America does.’’

Vladimir Putin is surely thinking the same thing. How does America get off telling him that by invading Ukraine he has violated international laws and norms by seizing the territory of another nation, while Trump muses about seizing Greenland and forcibly reimposing U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal? Ukraine’s territory was once part of Mother Russia, as was Crimea, which Putin has already fully taken back.

No wonder Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told CNBC on Thursday that Russia is “watching the rhetoric on these topics coming out of Washington with great interest.”

Some may think Trump’s remarks on taking Greenland and the Panama Canal are just a joke from an attention-seeking leader with no filter. But, they are not a joke. They are a prescription for chaos. They have already done more damage than people realize. If Trump persists with them, the joke will be entirely on us and on the world order we established after World War II.

Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981, and has won three Pulitzer Prizes.

Donald Trump has no intention to govern a democracy. Instead he intends to issue executive orders and cause chronic government chaos.

Delusions of grandeur- Opinion letters published in the Houston Chronicle:

Regarding "Trump, the 'America First' candidate, has a new preoccupation: Imperialism," (Jan. 9): What is happening? Is our soon-to-be POTUS so intoxicated with his own grandeur that he is out to conquer the world? Does he believe, as the monarchies of old did, that the number of territories a country rules is a sign of power?

From:  Pansy Gee in Sugar Land, Texas

Regarding "Trump refuses to rule out use of military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal," (Jan. 7): As someone who did not and could not ever vote for Donald Trump, I have long marveled at the willingness of the American public to disregard what he says and to assume he really means something else. That sort of naivete might be partially liberals' fault: Democrats, at least since the Obama era, seem to have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Their response was to ridicule Donald Trump, not recognizing that his supporters (a growing number) believed the Democrats were ridiculing them as well.

Trump’s advantage was that he could point to what he said and say he told you what he was going to do, and you didn’t object to it. In fact, you voted for him, perhaps because of it.

Now he's talking about taking control of the Panama Canal and annexing Greenland, which he says are vital to American interests, without ruling out using military force to do it. Add to that the dissolution of many checks and balances that were built into the Constitution, as well as his admiration of and fascination with the world’s dictators. Don’t be surprised at some of the things he comes up with during his administration, including his desire to be president-for-life, like China’s Xi Jinping. I believe we’re going to be on a wild ride of a roller coaster for at least the next four years.

I fervently hope I’m proven wrong. After his first election I had hoped that “the office would make the man,” but now that hope is slim to none. As an independent, I don’t see what Democrats — or anyone — can do to change the new status quo.  By the way, roller coasters make me nauseous.

From Len Kaplan in Houston Texas

As you reported, Trump refuses to rule out military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland and secure both territories, which he says are vital to American national security. Those were the kind of words Adolf Hitler used as he began what ended up as World War II. The territory was never quite enough, nor was his distaste for certain minorities, much like Trump displays toward many Hispanics. As my father remarked about Hitler when I was a child, "That man is crazy." I say the same about Donald Trump.

From Eritha Yardley in Houston Texas