Trump is teasing US expansion into Panama, Greenland and Canada
Trump is teasing US expansion into Panama, Greenland and Canada
President-elect Donald Trump appears to be entertaining an American territorial expansion that, if he’s serious, would rival the Louisiana Purchase or the deal that netted Alaska from Russia.
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It cracks me up the way he says buy and the us should own it. Lets say it even happened the way we bought alaska. it would make it the 51st state. it would make it part of us and much like alaska it determine how resources are used and likely have its own fund to encourage people to come liver there. but he talks like it would be a possession the way the us owns florida or texas.
Would not make anything a state. Have you seen Puerto Rico? Guam? American Samoa?
puerto rico is not a state because every time the opportunity arose they voted not to be one. guam and american samoa im not really sure whats going on.
Oh don’t forget Washington DC.
oh common. do you think thats a legitamate example. it was carved out of maryland and virginia for the specific purpose of being the capital with no state having authority over it.
But I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, please) that it was also not meant to have a civilian population at all, and only be home to businesses, government offices, and those who were in elected office until they left and returned home. The absence of a civilian population would render the fact that DC has no representation in congress moot. But people started living there, causing the problem of having no representation in Congress.
yeah and the area is run by the federal government so not having federal representation is basically like not having state representation to boot.
it was also not meant to have a civilian population at all
Meaning that its population was almost entirely African-American and therefore to be ignored.
And the people who live there don’t have representation in Congress, but that’s not the point.
The point is that it’s not a state. Just “being a possession of the United States” doesn’t confer statehood.
yes but again its not typical it was a very specific thing. The land had belonged to two different states. the guam, puerto rico, us virgin islands are similar but dc is in on way similar.
Alaska was purchased by the US in 1867. It didn't get statehood until 1959.
Being a possession of the United States of America does not automatically make it a state.
true but its basically a bureaucracy thing at that point. as long as the it has a populace and they seek statehood its going to happen.
guam and american samoa im not really sure whats going on.
Population issues. An admittedly quick Google search (so take it for what it's worth) says that the minimum population is 60,000 adult males. Guam has a population of 172k, so there are either not enough adult males among the 172k (which is unlikely but possible once you factor out women and children under 18), or there are other issues I'm unaware of (including maybe simply not wanting to become a state).
The other US territories outside of Puerto Rico and Guam typically have populations of less than 50k in total per territory, which would make them way, way too small to be considered for statehood. Admitting them as states would also give them outsized voting power when compared to population size, particularly in the US Senate. But even in the HOR, you'd have one representative from each territory representing roughly the population of a small US city who's vote would carry weight equal to others that are representing half a million to a million or more each.