Trump’s 'dangerous' Greenland talk could 'embolden' tyrants globally: ex-US ambassador to Russia

President-elect Donald Trump has often been described as an "isolationist" whose anti-interventionist "America First" views are a major departure from the hawkish policies of President Ronald Reagan, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

But Trump's recent comments on Greenland and the Panama Canal, according to critics, have an imperialist quality.

Trump has called for the United States to buy Greenland, a Danish territory. But Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede has maintained that the island "will never be for sale."

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During a Tuesday morning, December 31 appearance on MSNBC's "Way Too Early," Michael McFaul — who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia under former President Barack Obama — argued that Trump's rhetoric on Greenland could have a dangerously destabilizing effect around the world.

When MSNBC's Ali Velshi asked McFaul to weigh in on the "expansionist comments coming from Donald Trump," he responded, "Well, you know, the generous interpretation….. is this is crazy genius. But I just think it's crazy. This notion that this volatile leader, this Nixon analogy, will work for Trump in a second term — I don't think there's evidence to support that hypothesis. We had four years of it already, after all, and I can't think of a single instance where Trump acting crazy led to a positive outcome for American security or economic interests."

McFaul added, "Moreover, I think we have to weigh the damage as well."

The former U.S. ambassador to Russia went on to argue that "harassing" long-time U.S. allies like Denmark and Canada does nothing to serve the United States' "strategic interests." And when Velshi asked if Trump's rhetoric could encourage "expansionism" globally, McFaul replied, "We benefit from a rules-based international order. When countries like Russia invade their neighbors and annex territory, we can invoke to the rest of the world that this violates the terms of the post-World War 2 order, right? We can't do that when we begin threatening to take other pieces of land and we begin to act or at least sound like Russia."

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McFaul continued, "I think it's very dangerous, and I think it emboldens people like (Chinese President) Xi Jinping. Well, if America can take Greenland, why can't I take Taiwan?..... The idea somehow that being and sounding crazy gets other countries to do what we want — there's no evidence for it in the first Trump term, and I think it's very dangerous in the second Trump term."

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