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Carbonhalo
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25 Dec 2024, 3:43 am

President Musk offers Alaska to Denmark in exchange for Greenland, Florida to Panama in exchange for the Panama Canal.

"Both these states are just liabilities and my friends can make a lot of money if we hold a fire sale." claims Vice President elect Trump. "The profit possibilities of the canal alone are astounding when we allow free passage to American flagged ships and charge double for everyone else."

Sounds far fetched?
It seems more believable than anything he's spouted in months.

Discuss



The_Walrus
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25 Dec 2024, 4:26 am

Leaving aside that neither Musk nor Trump would be eligible for those positions :wink:

Those are both very bad trades. Alaska is much more valuable than Greenland, with 13 times the population and twenty times the GDP as well as a more strategic location. And while the Panama Canal is very important, its revenue is only about $5bn a year. Contrastingly, Disney generates over $6bn a year in tax revenue in Florida alone.

I especially don't see Trump giving away Florida, which is now his home state, where Mar-a-Lago is.

Now, while on paper Panama and Denmark would "gain" from these trades, I don't think they'd want them either. It would be very difficult for them to administer these territories, especially given the residents will consider themselves American. The Florida-US border would be very porous, with undocumented immigrants flooding into Alabama and Georgia in their millions.



MaxE
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25 Dec 2024, 5:20 am

I always wondered how much the US could get by selling Hawai'i to China. Possibly enough to put a serious dent in the national debt.

@OP I hope you're OK.


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Carbonhalo
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25 Dec 2024, 10:46 am

Nice estimates Walrus, but they seems to assume Florida will still be above water in 4 years..
Mar-a-Lago will probably end up blown into Kansas
I only used those positions because they'd be bound to irritate the orange flup-top tantrum, and accuracy is a small price to pay for such an opportunity.
I grant Alaska is worth way more than Greenland resource wise, but cash in the bank seems far more useful than cash in the ground to the kind of oligarch Trump enjoys spending time on his knees for. And.... a geothermal golf course....Mmmmm
The populations of these places? I can't see many of Trumps cabinet giving a rodent's rectum about them until he adjusts presidential term limits to require more votes, and then only until an election (if still available or required)
Plus... Demonization is always only a finger point and an illiterate sentence away.
No bread? Let them eat Mickey Ds