It’s unclear for now where Greenland truly fits on the incoming president’s priority list, GOP analyst John Cardillo said on American Family Radio Tuesday.
What should concern people more, Cardillo insists, is Trump's stance regarding H-1B visas for legal immigrants.
“I’ve always liked the visas and I have always been in favor of the visas," Trump recently told The New York Post.
"I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” he said.
Trying to find the strategy over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal – and now in comments to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico – may involve more thinking than necessary, Cardillo said.
“This is just red meat for the base," he asserted. "The Trump base, one thing we’ve learned, they love a show, but they’re not demanding substance.”
Visas used to replace U.S. workers
The issue of immigration - illegal and legal - proved to be a huge issue for both GOP and Democrat voters in November, and the populist Republican candidate said he was listening.
A plan to find, arrest and deport illegal aliens is expected to happen quickly after Jan. 20, for example, and the issue of welcoming legal H-1B workers is a related issue. That is because many U.S. citizens have been sent packing by their employer to make room in the office cubicle for a foreigner.
On X, formerly Twitter, Trump's most loyal supporters were split over the issue while others took a different approach and waited for the president-elect to share his view.
Trump billionaire advisor Elon Musk, owner of X, has argued that the H-1B visa program is critical to ensuring American companies can find highly skilled labor that may not be readily available in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly joked about Canada – which this week saw the resignation of embattled leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – becoming America’s 51st state, citing the need to protect U.S. interests and reduce trade deficits.
He has also expressed a desire to purchase Greenland, an island of 56,000 inhabitants northeast of North America, citing national security concerns.
Trump, through a message delivered by his son, Donald Trump Jr., who visited Greenland this week, told its residents, “We’re going to treat you well.”
“I don't think any of this is going to happen," Cardillo told show host Jenna Ellis.
Military force on the table
Later, in a news conference from South Florida, Trump would not rule out military force in order to take control of both Greenland and the Panama Canal, The Associated Press reported.
Trump has expressed concerns about Chinese and its communist party flexing its authority in both.
Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst at the Family Research Council, told AFN that multiple countries are vying for control of Greenland’s resources.
"Greenland has all sorts of minerals. The Chinese would like to buy it if they could. The Chinese and the Russians are trying to dominate the entire northern cap of this globe through their Ice Breakers and their establishment of military facilities all over,” he said.
The U.S. already owns the Pituffik Space Base on Greenland’s northwest coast. It is the northern-most installation of the U.S. military.
“Pituffik Greenland is very sensitive site for us and has been for a long time because it was there to track Cold War Russian missiles heading for the United States. So, we have a strategic interest,” Maginnis said.
Trump threatened, mocked GOP rep
Cardillo says Trump’s embrace of the visas, and his push for Congress to raise the debt ceiling during holiday spending talks, are political warning signs that should not go ignored.
“Trump caved on H1 visas and he took an incredibly far-left position on asking for elimination of the debt ceiling," Cardillo argued.
Trump's public push for Republicans to eliminate the debt ceiling included a threat against a Republican, Rep. Chip Roy. The outspoken Freedom Caucus leader, famous for bucking his own party leaders, was accused by Trump of "getting in the way" of raising the debt ceiling.
“The very unpopular ‘Congressman’ from Texas, Chip Roy, is getting in the way, as usual, of having yet another Great Republican Victory — All for the sake of some cheap publicity for himself," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump's verbal attack against Roy was followed by Trump supporters who repeated the claims, but it reminded others of Trump's bullying and insulting behavior during the first term.
