Behind Donald Trump's territorial claims can be seen a wish to secure the US's sea routes for both economic and strategic reasons. We explain why.
Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza and Ukraine. Since his investiture, Donald Trump has been banging the drum for territorial expansionism to the stupefaction of international observers. The new American president regularly makes provocative declarations but, behind his off-the-cuff formulas, there can be seen a new sovereignty strategy, in which maritime questions have a central role.
Let us try to put his declaration so far in order and analyse their likely impact on the shipping sector.
1. The Middle East ceasefire a way of making the Suez Canal safe again
Maritime objective: Enable traffic through the Suez Canal to return to normal so as to drastically reduce freight rates.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force on 19 January, just before Donald Trump's investiture. Initially, the agreement raised hopes that there would be a de-escalation of tensions in the region and a cessation of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. This would allow ships to begin transiting through the Suez Canal again after 18 months of skirting round Africa via the Cape of Good Hope. The ceasefire is very fragile, however, and the way that the affair is being handled by the new Trump administration is not conducive to a return to calm.
- The Houthis let it be known that that they were not ruling out further attacks on ships they consider to have links with Israel, which, potentially, concerns a large proportion of the international container fleet. On 23 January, Trump signed a decree proclaiming that the Yemeni rebels are a terrorist organisation. There is a long way to go, therefore, before calm can be restored.
- At the same time, Trump's plan for Gaza, which involves emptying the territory of its inhabitants, has run into strong oppositions from Arab countries and a number of Western nations. The nature of the plan is clearly not going to reduce tension. On the contrary. It has however, forced Arab countries to come up with an alternative plan to bring lasting peace in the region.
By putting the parties involved under pressure, Trump is hoping to rapidly reopen what is an essential trade route. Lower freight rates will benefit American importers and could be used to achieve the political objective of lowering inflation, even if transport costs are often marginal in the composition of the final price of consumer product.
2. The Panama Canal, a key link between the east and west coasts of the United States
Maritime objective: remove the threat posed by China, regain control of traffic using the canal and ensure the "southern route" to the US is secure.
The Panama Canal links the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, speeding up transit times between the west and east coast of the United States by comparison with the longer route round Cape Horn. It also offers shorter transit times than the Suez Canal route.
The canal was returned to Panama on 31 December 1999 but, a few days before his investiture, Trump said that this had been a "very big mistake" and that he intended to retake control of the waterway. He made two main complaints. One concerned the prices paid by American ships using the canal and the other China's growing influence in the canal area. China's Hutchison Ports group does indeed run the two biggest terminals in the ports of Balboa and Cristobal at either end of the canal and this is seen a direct threat to American interests. China's influence is also political. In June 2017, the Panamanian president broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and gave his support to China's New Silk Roads project. Since then, numerous bilateral agreements have been signed between China and Panama and, in December 2018, Xi Jinping became the first Chinese president to pay an official visit to Panama.
By threatening to take back control of the canal, Trump aims to counter Panama's closer relations with China, which is a strategic and economic rival to the United States. It cannot be denied, moreover, that the pressure he has applied has already had an effect. Panamanian president José Raul Mulino announced on 6 February that Panama was withdrawing from the New Silk Roads project.
3. Greenland, strategically placed on the Northern Sea Route
Maritime objective: make the Northern Sea Route secure and develop port infrastructure for the mining, oil and gas industries.
Since he was elected, Trump has on several occasions expressed his wish to take control of Greenland, an Arctic territory currently under Danish rule. Again, his logic is eminently strategic and economic. In the first place, Greenland has rich mineral resources and perhaps oil and gas reserves. Above all, however, the melting of the ice cap has opened the way to new Arctic Sea routes. At the same time, given its proximity to Russia, the United States' presence there would also have an important military and strategic dimension. Denmark, a long-standing and faithful US ally in both the economic and diplomatic spheres, has been dumbfounded by Trump's claims. The Danish government is currently looking for support from its European allies to help it oppose the project.
4. Canada, the brick that can make North America the dominant maritime power
Maritime objective: secure the Northwest Route and construction of an enlarged port network by extending the existing east and west coast port ranges
Trump's expansionist ambitions also concern its immediate neighbour, Canada, which the new American president wants to turn into the 51st state of the United States. His spectacular announcement in this respect had the effect of sawing through the meagre branch on which outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau was sitting but also reawakened anti-US sentiment in Canada, uniting the anglophone and francophone communities, which are not always on the same wavelength.
On paper, the idea might seem attractive from an economic point of view. If the Canadians were offered parity between the US and Canadian dollars, for example, their national wealth would theoretically be given a 20% boost. It is unlikely, however, that Trump, the "dealmaker", would be ready to offer them such a gift. Moreover, the first measures taken by the new administration in the US give a good idea of what is likely to happen to the Canadian social model. In short, in both Canada and Denmark, Trump's propositions have been met with determined opposition. Clearly, Canada intends to remain a loyal partner and supplier to the United States. The two countries' port and other infrastructures are already interconnected but they are unlikely to be singing the same national anthem any time soon.
5. The end of the war in Ukraine would contribute to detente in the the Black Sea area
Maritime objective : a return to safe navigation in the Black Sea and lower oil prices.
As in the Middle East, the objective of the new US administration is less to restore peace than to obtain fresh resources. On 12 February, Trump officially began peace negotiations over Ukraine with Russian president Vladimir Putin without consulting European leaders. At the same time, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent was in Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelensky. According to a Telegraph report quoted by French geopolitical magazine Le Grand Continent, he proposed a contract which provided for an economic takeover of Ukraine by the US, covering Ukraine's mineral resources, oil, gas, ports and infrastructure. The United States demanded 50% of recurrent revenues from Ukraine's mineral resources and a right of first refusal on the country's mineral exports. The US also demanded that Ukraine "reimburse" $500 billion, which is to say 4.5 times the aid actually provided to date by the US, which amounts to €114 billion (approximately $119 billion). The agreement about to be signed by Ukraine includes a number of these demands, but it is still too vague to be able to make an exact inventory. In any case, as Le Grand Continent summarises it very well, "the country is currently caught between Russia's attempt to conquer it militarily and America's economic colonisation project".
A first evaluation
These multiple announcements sound like a first territorial policy statement from the new Trump administration. Its declared ambitions clearly include several strategic, maritime objectives, to which will undoubtedly be added security considerations in the South China Sea.
Its policy is based on security cordons and hinterland expansion through the creation of an enlarged, integrated economic area. The vision behind it also anticipates an early opening of the Northern Sea Route. Almost more pragmatic than imperialist, the expansionism it involves is not fundamentally bellicose. More cynically, it is based on a wish to adapt to the natural movement of the hub of economic gravity towards the north east. Geographically, this new approach brings the Americans and Russians closer together via the Arctic, from which Europe would incidentally be excluded.
Since he was elected and even more so since his investiture, Trump, an astute connoisseur of the workings of the media, has been issuing announcements and threats at breakneck speed, ready to suspend, defer or cancel them and move quickly on to another subject to wipe out the memory of the one that precede it. The manoeuvre makes sense to American public opinion, which sees it as proof that the administration is taking care of the country's internal interests at the highest level. These imperialist ambitions risk quickly running into some painful realities, however. The United States will need to find a way of dealing with a debt which has reached 125% of GDP and its heavy dependence on imports. The Trump administration is trying to remedy these problems with import tariffs in the hope that these will result in production being relocated. In the short term, however, this will lead to inflation, whereas the new president was elected on a promise to hold down prices.
As regards maritime sovereignty, the goal of achieving independence in the short term is just as illusory. Even supposing that the big trade routes are secured, which will take at least some time, the United States needs to rebuild its entire maritime sector. The merchant fleet under American control represents less than 1% of the world fleet. This hardly matches up to the administration's aim of creating a maritime security cordon round its future new empire.
