Trump’s actions in Venezuela suggest Canada is ‘on the menu’: ex-UN envoy

> without any notion of legality

This sort of reared its head during the Bush II era, though even that administration was not as blunt. The US has never entirely accepted the concept of the sovereignty of other states other than as a sort of practicality. The umbrage the US took to mostly European internationalist attempts to reign them in during the early War on Terror phase was quite considerable. The recent story with the French judge is not the first time threats against judges in Europe have been made, though it’s the first time actions have been carried out. (So many stories to keep track of one gets dizzy.)

Many Americans are quasi-religious about the special nature of their constitutional order and they really have no truck with kingdoms and parliaments. This is easily exploited to turn the American public jingoistic against any country including against a democracy.

The whole world is on the menu.

Panama [has already come up](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/12/panama-hegseth-us-invasion-canal). US forced them to accept stationing US troops to protect the canal earlier this year. Panama may come up again. This seems to be an ongoing security concern for the US.

North and South America, the Americas, divide the world ocean into two halves: the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Panama Canal links them. The Straits of Magellan link them. The Northwest Passage link them.

The United States is adamant on controlling all three passages. To split the world in two and control passage between the halves is the oceanic domination of the old British empire continued. Speaking of which…

I’m waiting for Antarctica to come into play. If it’s about resources — well there’s an entire continent that’s as yet untapped. The peninsula is more thawed than many parts of Greenland.

Did you know Norway claims Bouvet Island? One of the strange artifacts of the late age of exploration. A tiny little islet about halfway between Antarctica and South Africa. Norway used to have a research station but now it’s entirely uninhabited. Interesting potential forward base for China to push into the south Atlantic. But then again ties with Argentina and the UK (with the joint US-UK base at nearby Tristan de Cunha) are strong.

They will act unilaterally without considering our sovereignty. Perhaps they want a big sensor net in the arctic to track Chinese subs through the northwest passage and don’t want to ask us for permission and they just start building bases.

Or maybe they’re going after the resources. Maybe they decide to start drilling for oil up there without permission. It’s illegal! Who would stop them? At what cost? We could not resist as things stand.