More from our inbox:Dispirited and Disconnected After the ElectionBillionaires and PoliticsCelebrating the Novella: A Tale ‘Told Briskly’ImagePresident-elect Donald J. Trump has accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the Panama Canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the decades-old treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

To the Editor:747 live

Re “Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: This Time It’s Not a Joke” (news article, Dec. 24):

In advance of taking office, President-elect Donald Trump, with his customary bluster and threats, has been laying the groundwork for returning the United States to its expansionist past with serious designs on Panama and Greenland, coupled with, hopefully, only frivolous talk about annexing Canada.

The governments of these sovereign countries have understandably not taken kindly to Mr. Trump’s harsh rhetoric and would surely resist any threat to their autonomy.

Mr. Biden even held on to hope for the transformative peace deal for the Middle East that he thought was within grasp a year ago, believing it could survive even as the war between Hamas and Israel tore at its foundations.

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But the truth is that Mr. Biden will speak at a time of deep uncertainty about the future of America’s role in the world, including the war in Ukraine, escalating conflicts in the Middle East and growing economic competition with China.

Apparently determined to reclaim the Panama Canal, which the United States ceded by treaty to Panama and whose use we have shared with other nations for many decades, Mr. Trump is asserting that the United States — with enviably the world’s largest economy — is being treated “unfairly” by the government of Panama due to high canal usage fees.

It’s not clear how serious the president-elect is about these schemes of acquisition, but his pre-inaugural authoritarian rhetoric has already set a tone of confrontation and chaos, especially regarding Panama.

With any serious pursuit of territorial expansion, or just by threatening it, Mr. Trump would likely drive a wedge between the United States and longstanding allies, and would risk undoing the successes of his predecessors, possibly upending decades of respect for America and its leadership of the world.

Roger HirschbergSouth Burlington, Vt.

To the Editor:

Someone should inform President-elect Donald Trump that there are other ways for America to get what it wants from other sovereign nations. We don’t need to purchase Greenland and the Panama Canal. And, God forbid, we don’t need to invade those peaceful nations we want to control as Russia is doing to the sovereign nation of Ukraine.

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