Donald Trump’s territorial wishlist

Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. Today let’s dive into:

• Trump’s expansionist dreams

• Pfizer CEO cosies up to Trump

• Musk’s UK politics rabbit hole

Donald Trump is having expansionist fantasies and world leaders are not amused.

After the president-elect refused to rule out using force to obtain Greenland, the EU has a message for him: no touchy. 

Greenland is an autonomous Danish territory that is not itself a part of the EU. However, Copenhagen retains control of foreign and security policy for the world’s largest island, and the EU’s mutual defence clause would apply to Greenland in the event of military aggression. 

Why does Trump want Greenland? Probably because of its vital role in US security, particularly for Washington’s missile early warning system, space surveillance and satellite command. [Free to read.]

The US already has a significant military presence in Greenland, and its geostrategic importance is only expected to grow. As climate change reshapes the Arctic it will open new trading routes that put the island at the centre of a polar scrum between Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said Greenland is “not for sale”. But in an apparent effort to defuse tensions with Trump, she stressed she was keen to co-operate with Washington in the Arctic.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “borders must not be moved by force”, arguing that “the principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country”. French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that while he didn’t expect Trump to invade Greenland, “there is obviously no question of the EU letting other nations in the world . . . attack its sovereign borders”.

Also on Trump’s territorial wishlist are the Panama Canal and Canada, plus he wants the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the “Gulf of America”. 

Standing in front of a colonial-era map of the region from 1607, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum hit back at Trump, suggesting US territory that used to be part of Mexico should be called “Mexican America”. 

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said there wasn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” of his country becoming part of the US.

Transitional times: the latest headlines

• UFC boss and Trump ally Dana White is joining forces with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg as Silicon Valley looks to foster links to the Trump administration.

• Trump pushed back his campaign pledge to end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours” to several months.

• US Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they’ll have to take a “careful approach” to cutting interest rates amid elevated policy uncertainty and inflation risk as Trump’s second presidency approaches. 

• Pfizer chief Albert Bourla is leading the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to cosy up to Trump. 

• Nippon Steel and US Steel are betting they can persuade Trump to save their $15bn merger.

What we’re hearing

As for top Trump consigliere Elon Musk, he’s daydreaming about regime change across Europe, especially in the UK.

The Tesla chief has privately discussed how to get Sir Keir Starmer booted from the UK premiership before the next general election, people briefed on the matter told the FT’s Anna Gross and Joe Miller.

Musk has been probing how he and his right-wing allies might destabilise the UK’s Labour government beyond his aggressive X posts, the people said. He’s looking for information about the British electoral system and whether it’s possible to garner enough support for alternative political movements.

“His view is that western civilisation itself is threatened,” one of the people said. 

This obsession with UK politics is being fuelled by a series of popular accounts on X, which Musk seems to be mining for information on a national grooming gangs scandal and Starmer’s prosecutorial record. The billionaire’s attacks on Starmer and senior UK politicians are only getting more searing.

An FT analysis of Musk’s X feed found that he’s amplified or responded to a handful of X accounts that have posted extensively about the handling of historic sex crimes in the country: Visegrád 24, run by British-born South African-Pole Stefan Tompson, social media personality Mario Nawfal and Malaysian influencer Ian Miles Cheong, along with some less popular right-leaning accounts purportedly based in the UK.

Viewpoints