As Trump gets closer and closer actually to being President anxieties are, I think, increasing among his non-fans about what he plans to do. The obvious split in his supporters between MAGA types and Musk types is to me not a cause for great joy in that it’s almost one of those contests where you wish both sides would lose. But not quite–I’ll take the Musk side, however reluctantly, in that one. But I just might criticize them too.

Among the more bizarre things Trump has said(or written)lately is that he would like the US to acquire Canada and Greenland, and “take back” Panama. I believe he talked about buying Greenland the first time around but our immediate neighbor to the north and our long time(if slightly reluctant)partner in running the canal are being so honored for the first time. My immediate reaction–that this was a typical Trumpish ridiculous policy has not changed much-I still stick with it more than 90% for reasons I think we’ll shortly see.

But I do call your attention to an article in Salon.com by its editor, Andrew O’Hehir which does give us a little more understanding and just a tad of nuance. It’s not that Andrew approves of Trump in any noticeable way. He describes Trump’s posts about these three places as “blatantly inflammatory and insulting, not to mention well beyond self-parody.” So he’s not a fan. He speculates that the President-elect is still somewhat affected by a few things he learned in school sometime about foreign policy and has “accidentally horseshoed himself into spectacularly ill-informed opinions that nonetheless capture something of the contemporary zeitgeist.”(O’Hehir writes well!)

In other words, Trump is now, perhaps somewhat subconsciously, saying things that reveal his mental dependence upon ideas of decades ago, a few of which have been updated a little bit and separated from their original context. It appears that in that context they have affected and appeal to the MAGA folks. O’Hehir says that Canada as a dependency or satellite of the US is an old idea, much predating the Trump era. This idea, he says, is “not quite true but also not entirely falsifiable,” and he suggests we solicit opinions from other lesser powerful nations with powerful neighbors, such as Ireland, Belgium, or Finland.

He then goes on to denote the ridiculousness of this idea which he says is “one million percent not going to happen.” If Canada were to become a US state it would be geographically bigger than the other 50 put together, but just about tied with California for the largest in population.

Going on to other Trumpian fantastic ideas– at one point the former President claimed Chinese soldiers were “lovingly, but illegally” running the Panama Canal. This leads our author to comment that “his pronouncements are ludicrous and his facts are wrong.” Trump said about 38,000 American were lost during the construction of the canal. The figure of 38,000 might not be far off overall, we learn, but only about 1% of them were Americans. Most were actually Caribbean laborers.

Getting Greenland is likely the most goofy of Trump’s “proposals.” It is, O’Hehir says, one of “the strangest places on earth.” Its “indigenous” people, the Inuits, arrived after the first Europeans did and today are about 90% of the population. For about 300 years Denmark has owned it outright, or at least been the ruling power. This situation lasted until fairly recently and some of it still remains. Forty some years ago Greenland got “home rule” and they now have “self government,” just short of full independence. But Denmark still plays a role in that it provides a close to $600 million a year block grant which is likely a good reason for not seeking full independence.(O’Hehir points out this is about 1/4 of the Greenland GDP)

Turning to Panama, O’Hehir says it is independent today “only” because the US plotted with anti-Columbian forces in the area(it was part of Columbia then)to bring about the rule of “a revolutionary” junta. He is mostly correct, but I question that this is the only reason Panama is independent now. There were other possibilities that could have happened if the US had not intervened.

But, as any student of US diplomatic history and/or of our most dominating President, Theodore Roosevelt, knows, O’Hehir is mostly right. TR, in one of his earlier displays of colonialist enthusiasm, schemed to bring about a “revolution” by a few Panamanian leaders who declared independence from Columbia. The TR Administration gave diplomatic recognition to the new regime in about a day, a speed only seen, to my knowledge, one other time in US History. In 1948 it took Harry Truman about the same amount of time to recognize Israel.

One could make an argument that Panama has not reaped an entirely bitter crop out of this. It has had advantages from being the friend of the US. But it has been at least guided (if not more)by our government. And O’Hehir is correct in that “Panama has gone through a dizzying array of interventions.” It has been independent for a long time but not always stable.

O’Hehir concludes with an interesting comment, particularly interesting in that some of the Republicans have been turning back towards isolationism again, and that Trump appears to have recognized and decided to take advantage of that change. This puts him in the to-some-extent semi-pacifist camp that many Republicans and the America Firsters slid into after WWII began but before we were in it.

O’Hehir doesn’t address this fact directly, but he does say the following–“If this pseudo-neo-imperialism doesn’t seem to fit with Trump’s supposed version of overseas military entanglements, it’s because that too involves a suspension of disbelief. Trump is only opposed to foreign wars after the fact, if they turn out to be painful and expensive. He’d be delighted to invade some small and powerless country that can’t fight back, and then hold an expensive victory parade.”

This is an excellent assessment, in my opinion, of Trump’s moral qualities and of how his mind works. Say what you think your supporters will like, do it if it appears to be a winner and stay out of it if you might lose. It may turn out as a contradiction, but MAGA people don’t much worry about contradictions as long as it’s their own guy who is making them. When it come to complicated things like foreign policy, just assume he’s right and support, him loudly, if unreasonably,

I hope the Trump foreign policy will be something better than this in the second term. But hopes in politics-well, you know, right?(By the way, I had not looked at Salon.com previously–check it out if you haven’t)