Trump won’t rule out force to take Greenland and Panama Canal

Good morning. In today’s newsletter: 

• Trump escalates threats over Greenland and the Panama Canal

• China’s biggest football club kicked out of league

• Manmohan Singh’s greatest legacy

We start with Donald Trump’s latest broadside against US allies, as the incoming president refused to rule out using force to obtain Greenland or take control of the Panama Canal.

In a freewheeling press conference less than two weeks before he takes office, Trump threatened to use his country’s economic and military might against allies to further national security and territorial expansion.

Asked whether he would exclude the use of military or economic coercion to acquire Greenland or assume control of the Panama Canal, he said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security . . . We need Greenland for national security reasons.”

He also vowed to “tariff Denmark at a very high level” unless the country gave up control of Greenland, which he had sought to buy during his first term of office.

Here’s how Denmark’s prime minister responded to Trump’s threat.

• Meta preps for Trump: The Facebook owner is ending its third-party fact-checking programme and will instead rely on its users to flag misinformation, a model similar to the one employed by Elon Musk’s X.

What will Trump’s second term mean for America and the world? FT subscribers can join our webinar on January 23 at 9pm HKT to put questions to our journalists.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Australian inflation figures are due and Japan publishes the results of its December consumer confidence index.

• Samsung Electronics: The South Korean group reports fourth-quarter pre-earnings guidance ahead of full results expected later this month.

Five more top stories

1. Guangzhou FC, once China’s leading professional football club, has been dropped from the national league amid mounting financial woes related to the collapse of property developer China Evergrande, which bought the team in 2010. The club’s ineligibility is the latest blow to China’s aspirations in football.

2. Shein has been criticised by UK MPs for “not respecting” a cross-party parliamentary committee as the online fast-fashion retailer was quizzed about its working practices and plans to float on the London stock market. The online fast-fashion retailer refused to answer questions about whether it uses cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, and whether it acknowledged there was forced labour in the region.

3. Tencent and CATL are planning legal action to challenge being placed on a Pentagon list as “Chinese military companies”, if talks with the US defence department fail to get their new designations dropped. Here’s what analysts said about the Chinese companies’ prospects of being removed from the blacklist.

4. Bangladeshi authorities have requested information about UK City minister Tulip Siddiq’s bank accounts following allegations that members of her family embezzled funds from the South Asian country. Siddiq’s aunt Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister of Bangladesh last year. Read more on the escalating corruption probe.

5. UK Home Office minister Jess Phillips has said that “disinformation” spread by Elon Musk about grooming gangs in the UK and the government’s response is “endangering” her life. Britain has been convulsed in recent days by a dispute over the handling of historic grooming cases after Musk called for a new national inquiry into the scandal.

News in-depth

Justin Trudeau’s commitment to social causes, gender equality, indigenous rights and fighting climate change brought him global fame. But Canadians’ view of Trudeau — like that of his father, who himself served more than a decade in two stints as the country’s prime minister — was always deeply mixed, writes Ilya Gridneff in this review of the Liberal party leader’s career.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Manmohan Singh: Today’s economically dynamic India is the greatest legacy of the former prime minister, who died last month at the age of 92, writes Martin Wolf.

• Hub airports under pressure: Airlines are taking advantage of new jets to redraw their networks, allowing more passengers to avoid congestion at large airports.

• Dungeons & Dragons: Tweaks to the cult game’s rule book are an object lesson in how not to promote change, writes Stephen Bush.

Chart of the day

Retail investors in India are pouring money into defence stocks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for domestic arms manufacturing drove the sector index up nearly 56 per cent in a year.

Premium FT subscribers can sign up here for India Business Briefing, the Indian professional’s must-read newsletter on business and policy. Original analysis from my colleague Veena Venugopal will be delivered to your inbox every Tuesday and Friday.

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