DAN MCLAUGHLIN: Trump’s ‘crazy’ scheme to take Greenland and Panama by force is really his most ingenious real estate deal yet

You know the old saying. There are three things to remember in the real estate industry: location, location, location.

And who is a better student of the rough real estate game than Donald Trump?

That’s almost all you need to know about the president-elect’s recent vows to take Greenland and the Panama Canal by any means necessary.

In fact, Trump is sending a message to the world and America’s enemies: We are serious about protecting the Western Hemisphere – again.

Statesmen since Abraham Lincoln have looked both north and south to help protect our nation.

America’s fifth president, James Monroe, warned France, Russia and Spain in 1823 that the US would oppose any major power seeking to control the former Spanish colonies in Latin America.

In 1869, before America decided where a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans should go, President Ulysses S. Grant attempted to acquire the Dominican Republic to protect crucial shipping lanes. He sent the great abolitionist and diplomat Frederick Douglass to the island, but the US Senate rejected the deal.

Decades later, Americans under Teddy Roosevelt built the Panama Canal. Ronald Reagan argued against Jimmy Carter returning it to Panama in 1978. And George HW Bush invaded in 1989 and overthrew Panama’s dictator, partly to protect the Canal Zone.

America’s defensive interests have also expanded north of our borders.

William Seward, the Secretary of State, who purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, commissioned a report the following year on the acquisition of Greenland from Denmark.

That deal never came to fruition, but America would eventually take control of the island during World War II, after the Danish government fell to the Nazis.

After the war, the US built Thule Air Base on the northwest coast of Greenland. And during the Cold War, it served as a key part of an early warning system in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.

It is now known as Pituffik Space Base and is operated by the US Space Force (a Trump creation).

The “Monroe Doctrine” has since fallen out of fashion, especially in recent decades as US focus has shifted to the Middle East, Ukraine and Taiwan. But Trump is absolutely right to correct course now and conclude that we have neglected our neighbors for too long.

Problems are brewing.

Take the Panama Canal – Chinese influence has steadily grown there, while American money and weapons have – rightly – supported allies in Eastern Europe.

A Hong Kong-based company now manages ports at both entrances to the canal. If hostilities were to break out between the US and China, passage through the canal would undoubtedly be a primary point of contention.

In a world that has gone digital, it is also easy to forget that the world’s shipping lanes are more important than ever before.

When a ship runs aground in the Suez Canal, there is a threat of a port strike, or ships are harassed by Somali pirates off the coast of Africa, there are serious economic consequences. And no sea route is more important to America than the Panama Canal, which handles 40 percent of U.S. container shipping.

Now take Greenland. It is three times the size of Texas and has only 56,000 inhabitants. Staten Island in New York alone has nine times that number. The United States could use the site much better militarily and economically than Denmark.

Most of it is frozen tundra and will remain that way unless the Earth gets a lot warmer. But it has natural resources and, more importantly, a strategically crucial location on the Arctic Ocean.

That’s another place where the Chinese want to expand their influence. As former National Security Advisor John Bolton says in Greenland, “The price is security.”

Even Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman thinks the proposed purchase is worthwhile and denounces the left-wing freakout over the idea.

“If anyone thinks that’s crazy,” Fetterman said, “remember the Louisiana purchase?”

Indeed. But with Trump, it is often his tone, more than his topics, that upsets his opponents.

By threatening to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” ​​and insulting the Canadian prime minister by calling him governor of the 51st state, Trump is rallying his supporters and angering his critics.

He also begins a negotiation of his terms, starting with the most bizarre demands, but with plans for a deal.

Trump doesn’t actually need the United States to take over the canal — he just needs the Panamanian government to be more afraid of angering us than it is of China.

And buying Greenland from Denmark would be nice, but it’s not necessary. Trump will succeed if he can expand American influence there and curb the Chinese creep.

The crazy talk won’t end in wars or new American territory.

But it is not crazy to start bidding high.

For Trump, this is just a real estate deal.

And he likes the location.