Trump threatens Nato, Hamas, Greenland, Panama, and Canada in press conference

President-elect Donald Trump summoned the world’s press to Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday to unveil a new, $20bn (£16bn) foreign investment aimed at funding the construction of new data centres in the United States.

By the time his rambling, 100-minute, ad-libbed appearance was over, he had warned Nato members that he now requires them to devote 5 per cent of their GDP to the continent’s defence, insisted that “all hell will break loose in the Middle East” unless Hamas releases its remaining hostages before his inauguration on Monday, 20 January, refused to rule out the use of force to annex Greenland or seize control of the Panama Canal, and claimed windmills are killing whales.

The Ppresident-elect’s mental journey took observers through hinterlands that included his previously voiced claims that America’s washing machines, dishwashers and showers are underperforming due to US government regulations.

He claimed that neither President Joe Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris should have been permitted to stand for election. He flayed Biden for restricting energy exploration across 625 million miles of the US coastal waters, arguing falsely that the President had essentially shut down access to “the whole ocean”. And he avoided evincing any daylight between himself and Elon Musk, arguing that the billionaire’s social media spat with Sir Keir Starmer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was “not so unusual”.

The same cannot be said of Trump’s insistence that Nato members must now be ready to more-than-double their financial commitment to their own defence.

With several member states including the UK currently failing to meet defence expenditure targets of 2.5 per cent of GDP, Trump unexpectedly upped the ante even further. “It should be 5 per cent”, he insisted. “Nato should have 5 per cent…you can’t do it at 2 per cent … they’re in dangerous territory, they can all afford it, they should be at 5 per cent”.

Insisting that “nobody knows more about Nato”, Trump asserted that “I saved Nato, but now they’re taking advantage of us”. His comments will rekindle fears of a possible US withdrawal from the alliance once he returns to office, and will leave Senator Marco Rubio – his choice to lead the Department of State – facing immediate calls for clarification the second he is confirmed in his post.

On Russia’s war on Ukraine, Trump doubled down on his determination to end the conflict. He blamed Biden for fomenting it, falsely claiming that before the conflict began “it was written in stone” that Ukraine would never be granted Nato membership. Russia, he said, “had a deal and Biden broke it”.

He called the conflict “a Biden fiasco that should never have happened. If we had a real President who knew what he was doing, Russia would never have gone in”. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin already wants to meet him, but “I don’t think it’s appropriate until after the 20th … which I hate, because every day the killing is continuing”.

His toughest language was reserved for the crisis in the Middle East. Trump unexpectedly called his envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, to the podium, who claimed negotiations in Doha to secure the release of Hamas’ hostages are “making a lot of progress … and I’m really hopeful that by the inaugural we’ll have some good things to announce on behalf of the President”.

Trump then interrupted, more succinctly to hone the message. “If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out and it will not be good for Hamas”, he thundered. “I don’t want to say any more, but that’s how it is”. He repeated the threat multiple times for emphasis.

As the press conference continued, Trump threatened to use “economic force” to coerce Canada to become America’s 51st state. He said that seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal by force “might be … something” that he would have to order. He indicated that he is considering pardons for many of the convicted participants in the 6 January 2021 uprising, and claimed “people that were doing some bad things weren’t prosecuted, and people that didn’t even walk into the [Capitol] building are in jail”.

Trump proclaimed that his presidency will usher in a “great, beautiful, golden age of business, and the beginning of a golden age of common sense …, from the simple water faucet that doesn’t allow water to come out properly … to taking $50-to-60bn off America’s balance sheet”.

By the time it was all over, Trump had forced US television networks to engage in a split-screen moment: his press conference on one side of the TV, former President Jimmy Carter’s casket departing Georgia en route to lie in state in the nation’s capital opposite it.

As reporters scrambled to keep up with the President-elect’s stream of consciousness, Trump cheerily assured them “we’ll do this again soon”. And assuredly, we will.