At various times recently President-elect Donald Trump has laid claim (sort of) to the Canal Zone in Panama, which we built and once owned. He has also raised again the idea of acquiring the large (and largely empty) island of Greenland, currently owned by Denmark.
If that wasn't enough, he also teased Justin Trudeau, PM of Canada, that Trudeau would be fine as the "governor" of our 51st state. Do you sense a common theme here?
Maybe a desire to expand the American Imperium? Has he got enough clout to make that happen? Probably not.
One way to think about his musing of this sort is him being "Donald the Deal-maker" laying out an extravagant initial bargaining position. It needs to be one which he has no real prospects of achieving. It sure gets the attention of the other party.
Or just maybe he'd like the history books to remember he added to the size of the country in which case he's serious. It will be fun to see which it is, maybe he is keeping his options open. Or maybe those are trial balloons.
