THE SET-UP: Trump lies and he lies a lot. He lies so much it’s tempting to just tune it out, if only for sanity’s sake. It’s maddening in no small part because there are no consequences. He lies without fear. In fact, he’s rewarded for lying. But we gotta try to stay engaged and keep in mind that he’s usually telling us something truthful when he telling us a lie. His lies have purpose … and they are mostly used to manage perceptions.
For instance, take the easily provable lie that 38k Americans died during the construction of the Panama Canal. The real number is approximately 300 … a fact so far afield from Trump’s claim it kinda makes you wonder if he’s suffering from dementia.
But it isn’t dementia. It’s jingoism and its irredentism.
Oddly enough, irredentism is a common characteristic of interwar fascist movements. Their appetite for reclaiming lost territory—particularly territory lost due to a betrayal by enemies at home and/or abroad—was fueled by grievances rooted in a romanticized, mythologized past. Reunification and reincorporation represent more than the righting of a wrong … they demonstrate the power of the state and its leader to make the people whole again. It heralds the return of the nation to its proper place in the world and in history.
And that’s usually sold to the people with propaganda.
So, Trump’s not just lying about 38k dead Americans, he’s rewriting history to gin-up grievance and juice the nation’s desire for “justice.” And while some of us wince when we hear him lying yet again … others hear him mythologizing their lives and romanticizing their future. For them, he’s not lying … he’s proselytizing a political religion. - jp
TITLE: Panama’s Port Sale Isn’t the End for Trump’s Canal Complaints
https://www.barrons.com/articles/panama-canal-ports-sold-whats-next-79859db6
EXCERPTS: The sale this week of two Panamanian ports from a Chinese company to a U.S. consortium is a victory for President Donald Trump, but it only appears to have whet his appetite for more concessions from Panama’s government.
Investment manager BlackRock announced Tuesday it and two partners would buy the ports as part of a $22.8 billion deal with Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison for dozens of ports around the world.
The Trump administration is concerned about Chinese investment in strategic infrastructure globally, particularly in Latin America. The port deal addresses those concerns and removes a point of contention with Panama—the potential for a Chinese security threat in the Panama Canal.
“I think it’s a plus for [Trump],” said Eric Farnsworth, who leads the Washington office for the Council of Americas, a think tank focused on the region. Trump’s interest in the canal “is leading to people questioning whether they want companies linked to China engaging in such direct activities in their country,” he said.
With the port issue resolved, strategists expect that the Trump administration will try to cut a deal for free passage of U.S. military ships through the canal.
The president said in his address to Congress Tuesday he has more ambitions.
“My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it,” Trump said.
Panama President José Raúl Mulino disputed that claim. The canal isn’t in the process of being reclaimed, he said [in a post on X]:
President Trump is lying again. The Panama Canal is not being rebuilt, and it is certainly not a task that was even discussed in our conversations with Secretary Rubio or anyone else. On behalf of Panama and all Panamanians, I reject this new insult to the truth and our dignity as a nation. Cooperation between our governments requires a clear understanding of issues of mutual interest, as has been done, and has nothing to do with “rebuilding the canal” or tarnishing our national sovereignty. The Canal is Panamanian and will remain Panamanian!
Trump has repeated his claims about the canal for months. He has complained the U.S. was being charged too much to use the 51-mile canal, and that that the U.S. “foolishly gave it away.”
The BlackRock deal puts a high-profile American name on assets that were formerly operated by a Chinese firm, and strategists say that could be a precursor for other U.S. investment in Latin American infrastructure.
“This is a huge strategic victory against Chinese investment in sensitive sectors like ports in Latin America” and globally, said Ryan Berg, director for the Americas at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Getting a discount for military ships passing through the canal would be another victory, Berg said. “That is a big thing, and then he can kind of pack it up, and take it home,” he said.
Charges for U.S. Navy ships are a divisive issue in Panama.
Free passage “contradicts the neutrality treaty,” said John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama. “My sense is there are those who seek a practical and relatively legal interpretation to make it happen and others in the Panamanian government who feel more nationalistically that this is a bridge too far.”
U.S. ships are charged based on the amount of water displaced, not on the volume of cargo like other ships, Quijano said. a military ship would pay $50,000 to $60,000 to pass through the canal, compared with an average of $400,000 for other ships.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in February. Afterward, the State Department said on social media that U.S. military ships would no longer pay fees to use the canal.
Panama objected to the claim, and Rubio said free passage for U.S. ships was an expectation, not a current policy.
“The truth is nobody knows what the real issue is here,” Farnsworth said. “China? Rates on shipping? U.S. desires to have engineering contracts on the environmental side for canal sustainability? Is it Venezuela and migration? Honestly, it could be all of the above.”
TITLE: Big Oil isn’t big on ‘drill, baby, drill’ — turning Trump to Canada and Greenland
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-oil-isnt-big-on-drill-baby-drill-turning-trump-to-canada-and-greenland-e330376a
EXCERPTS: Here’s something that usually surprises people: The United States is the world’s top exporter of gasoline. About one-sixth — 16% — of global gasoline exports originates in the U.S.
The U.S. can do this because the country is awash in oil and gas. The U.S. outproduces the world. It produces more than Saudi Arabia. More than Russia. The United States is No. 1.
But staying No. 1 is a top priority for Trump. During the campaign, Trump said that during his second term, America would “drill, baby, drill” to increase its record production — achieved during the supposedly oil-unfriendly Biden administration — even further.
There’s just one problem: U.S. oil companies generally aren’t so enthusiastic to dig for more oil. “We’re not going to see anybody in ‘drill, baby, drill’ mode,” Exxon Mobil Upstream
According to a survey by the Dallas Federal Reserve, the break-even price for new drilling projects ranged between $59 and $70 per barrel in 2024.
Although West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude currently trades near the high end of that range, margins might not be enough for firms to justify big investments. The sector has been burned by overproduction before, which caused prices to plunge. Then there are unforeseen “black swan” events like the coronavirus pandemic, which crushed demand, briefly sending prices to — and this is not a typo — negative-$37.63. So it’s not difficult to see why shareholder-friendly policies like stock buybacks and dividend hikes are currently seen as more attractive than investing in capacity.
The problem is that underinvestment could lead to America losing its dominant energy role.
This likely explains Trump’s talk — and he seems serious — about making Canada the 51st state, and/or either buying, or even seizing Greenland by force. Both Canada and Greenland are fossil-fuel (and rare earth) giants in their own right.
Though there’s a greater chance of me walking on the planet Neptune than Canada becoming a U.S. state, Trump’s desires have sparked the interest of thinkers like market strategist Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research.
In a recent commentary, Yardeni wrote that bringing Canada and Greenland under U.S. control would help “Trump to secure the U.S.’s energy future.” Trump “needs the Western Hemisphere to function as a coherent energy bloc,” Yardeni noted. “This means both a reliable, unimpeded flow of oil and natural resources from Canada and a safer Mexico. And that means both countries under the U.S.’s thumb.”
In terms of energy, Canada is far more important, given that it exports about 3.9 million barrels per day to the U.S. — 10 times what Mexico ships. For this reason, Yardeni called Canada an “indispensable partner.”
So then what about the tariff war between the two? Trump’s 25% tariff on most imports from Canada are now in effect, though energy imports will be levied at 10%.
Yardeni said most observers are evaluating this issue through the wrong filter. Tariffs on Canada might seem to be all about protectionism, but, according to Yardeni, it’s just one move on the chessboard, and the ultimate goal is greater American control over Canadian energy.
BTW: The New Republic thinks White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt revealed “the real aim of his tariff scam:
He feels strongly that it would be very beneficial for the Canadian people to be the fifty-first state of the United States. They wouldn’t be paying for these tariffs. They’d have much lower taxes if they were part of our great country.
TITLE: The Coming Age of Territorial Expansion
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/canada/coming-age-territorial-expansion
EXCERPTS: Washington’s bid for Greenland is just the opening chapter of a new global competition for territory. There are many qualities that make land valuable, such as access to resources, human habitability, agricultural productivity, and proximity to trade routes. For decades, countries have, for the most part, played with the hands they were dealt. But now, climate change is reshuffling the deck. As major powers try to position themselves for success in a warming world, many will rush to secure access to vital territory and resources—ushering in an era in which blatant land grabs are a recurrent theme.
What seems brazen and bizarre now may well become more common in the coming decades as policymakers grapple with the consequences of a warming planet. For a great power looking to set itself up for success in a future shaped by climate change, Greenland is a prize. The massive island will likely become an important waypoint for new northern shipping routes that open as Arctic ice melts. Although ice cover has so far limited the exploration of mineral deposits in Greenland, scientists believe it could possess significant quantities of iron ore, lead, gold, rare-earth elements, uranium, oil, and other valuable resources, including those minerals needed for the clean energy transition.
As the climate warms, people will be forced to flee places made inhabitable by rising seas, unbearable heat, and extreme weather—and by that time, Greenland will be far more comfortable for human settlement than it is now. Bitterly cold winters will ease, and summers will warm substantially. Recent years have seen average temperatures that are Greenland’s warmest on record for the past 1,000 years and are around 1.5 degrees Celsius above the twentieth-century average. Further temperature rises will foster new vegetation and even agriculture. Climate projections show that areas covered today by the low-to-the-ground vegetation of the tundra could host growing forests by 2100.
Climate change will create intractable problems for some countries and open new opportunities for others, encouraging a race for territory. Global warming–induced changes in productivity and habitability will carve new trajectories for economic output and migration. Emigration from North Africa, the Sahel, and the Middle East, for instance, will increase, as temperatures rise and agricultural productivity declines in those regions. People will also draw back from low-lying and flood-prone coastal areas, such as the Ganges Delta of Bangladesh and parts of coastal Florida.
Northern climates and areas with higher elevation will attract most of these displaced populations, although areas in the far south will gather a small number, too. Research by Stanford University scientists has shown that economic productivity accelerates as temperatures rise in cooler climates and slows as hotter climates heat up. The reasons are easy to identify: temperate climates allow greater agricultural production, enhanced population health, and better conditions for work. Excessively hot climates produce more heat-related deaths, higher energy costs, water shortages, and lower crop yields.
Faced with stark climate-related economic and demographic challenges, countries will try to lock in any advantage they can. Wrangling over Greenland is just the beginning. There are dozens of territories around the world that fit a similar profile to Greenland’s: sparsely populated, likely to become more habitable in the coming decades or home to valuable resources, and possessing weak, ambiguous, or transitional sovereignty. Other nonsovereign territories, such as the Faroe Islands, the Falkland Islands, French Guiana, or New Caledonia, could also enter into the sights of great powers or opportunistic neighbors. All these areas have been contested before and could be contested again.
The competition to secure access to food will intensify, too, as climate change affects crop yields and growing patterns around the world. Some countries will need to find new sources of agricultural goods, and the countries that can continue to produce and export food in a warming world will gain influence. Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine can be seen in part as a play for political leverage through agricultural advantage. For decades, the Soviet Union and Russia imported grain, but in the last two decades, Moscow has made a concerted and successful effort to boost domestic agricultural production. Now, not only is Russia no longer dependent on imports, but it also has become the world’s largest wheat exporter. By seizing prime agricultural land in Ukraine, Russia has further consolidated its domination of global grain markets. That position gives it immense power: if Moscow bars exports to a country that relies on imported grain, it can destabilize that country’s politics and drive hunger and even emigration.
Climate change will shape relations among states in complex ways in the coming decades, but the broad contours of these shifts are already visible. Even now, trade and commodity markets are transforming as powerful states grab key resources and new shipping routes open. Populations have already begun to move both within and across countries as climate change renders some parts of the earth less habitable and others more so. As these trends accelerate, they will fuel efforts by major powers to acquire new territories.
Although it is impossible to predict with certainty where and when countries will be prepared to go to war for land, environmental trends today suggest many possibilities for aggression down the road. A China facing grave threats from climate change—from rising seas and extreme weather in coastal areas to flooding along major rivers and desertification in the country’s north—could try to secure resources, habitable land, and geostrategic advantage by making incursions into Southeast Asia, claiming island outposts, or even grabbing pieces of eastern Russia or North Korea. Nigeria, on track to become more populous than China by the end of the century, could turn central Africa into a tinderbox. As climate change brings droughts, floods, and heat waves, disrupting agriculture and displacing communities, Nigeria may find it needs more resources to sustain its fast-growing population—and set its sights on neighboring countries to get them. Russia, meanwhile, could expand its footprint in the Baltics and countries such as Norway in order to secure northern shipping routes and expand its sea access. It could do the same in Antarctica, setting the stage for conflict with other great powers active there. And the United States, facing climate devastation in places such as coastal Florida, wildfire-prone California, and the drought-stricken Southwest could act on its territorial ambitions in northern territories including Greenland or even parts of Canada.
International agreements and alliances, already fraying as great-power competition heats up, will struggle to contain these fights. In a world where might makes right, countries that find themselves seeking new territory may not hesitate to use force to get it. With the most dramatic effects of climate change still to come, the race for land is just getting started.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Does Not Know How to Run an Empire [By Robert D. Kaplan]
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/06/trump-empire-bureaucracy-power-00215241
EXCERPT: President Donald Trump may be an imperialist or a mercantilist, or even a deal-maker extraordinaire as he prefers to think of himself. In any case, in his second term he appears to be in the business of exerting American power abroad, from Greenland to Gaza. But no modern empire has ever successfully projected power globally without a competent and motivated bureaucracy. The late Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote that the more complex a society becomes, the more it needs institutions to run it. And this is especially true of an empire, which the United States has been in functional terms since 1945. Americans may … be uncomfortable with the word empire, but our successes, challenges and even disasters have been akin to those of all the great empires of history. The Trump administration’s war on its own imagined “deep state” is essentially a war against the very institutions needed to organize society at home and especially, defend it from its enemies abroad.