General Discussion

..., so he seems to want to cement his "legacy" with something like the acquisition of Alaska, the Louisiana Purchase, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Gadsden Purchase, etc. This aligns with his admiration of Putin (and Xi and other such leaders). Putin seems to want to reconstitute the former Soviet Union's territory as a new, larger Russia. Trump possibly thinks that he might as well do the same: let those other countries just try and stop him. Why else declare that the Gulf of Mexico is the "Gulf of America"? In a sense, that was his annexation of that body of water. That was a test case that went well save for the resistance of the AP.

Sure, he can claim that all of this disruption and betrayal is for US national security reasons, but we already have agreements with Denmark, Greenland, Canada, and NATO countries that should serve all of those purposes: all that defending US national interests would take is for the US being a true friend and ally to those countries, but Trump is working as hard as he can to destroy all the US's international alliances, so being a good friend and ally is apparently not part of his plan.

That is not surprising, though, as everything is always all about him. How many businesses has he destroyed? bankrupted? not paid? He is loyal to nothing and no one except himself. His highest aspiration is his own self-aggrandizement. So, in attempting to make his "legacy" immortal, he will likely destroy the reputation of the US (if not the US) just as he has destroyed everything which he has led throughout his life.

Anyway, that is one possible answer to what may well be a rhetorical question, but I will close this comment with a hearty curse upon Merrick Garland, for he is the one without whose gentle action the US would not be in this situation.