Summary
Trump renewed calls for the US to annex Greenland for “national security” reasons during an Oval Office briefing, claiming “I think it will happen.”
Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister Múte Egede responded on Facebook: “Enough is enough,” and planned to summon all Greenland’s political parties for a joint rejection.
Likely incoming Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen also called Trump’s statement “inappropriate.”
Trump also undermined Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying it was “very far away and really has nothing to do” with the island.
Danish Defense Committee Chairman Rasmus Jarlov warned that US annexation “would mean war between two NATO countries.”
For what “national security reasons”? I’d like him to elaborate. Is Greenland somehow threatening the US? the only country threatening other countries in the area is the US.
Let me guess, natural resources.
Also strategic control of the melting and ever more passable Arctic, along with Russia. This also partly explains why Trump wants Canada.
A sane president who values geopolitical allies would just work out a deal with the host country to install more military bases in the region of concern, rather than burning every partnership we have by being aggressively expansionist.
The US already has that agreement!
A sane president who values geopolitical allies would just work out a deal with the host country to install more military bases in the region of concern, rather than burning every partnership we have by being aggressively expansionist.
Dismissing it as insanity undermines the culpability of what Trump is doing.
The point isn’t whatever ‘national security!’ bullshit they’re putching it as, the point is to piss of Greenland to the point of severing our relationship with them. Same with the shit he’s doing to Canada, Panama, etc.
Trump’s goal is to weaken the US, and he’s accomplishing that in part by cutting us off from our allies.
But an insane president will bluster about things he doesn’t want to actually do (like Canada and Greenland) as a distraction to keep us focused on this nonsense while he raids the government coffers for all the retirement money he can get his grubbly diseased hands on.
I’m betting he wants to charge fees for ships traversing the northwest passage, and he wants that revenue to go to the US, not Canada or Greenland/Denmark.
They already have strategic control over Greenland. Denmark would let the USA do almost whatever they want on greenland.
Denmark probably were the USAs biggests bitch in Europe until they started threatening Greenlands sovereignity.
Just another case of Trump apparently not understanding that you can be powerful in other ways than bullying and threatening people, and often more powerful. Or it’s all in the service of furthering Putin’s agenda and weakening the West. Or both.
Yep.
Yeah, but I thought climate change wasn’t real.
It’s really a bit of a giveaway that they know it’s real but have chosen to kill everyone else while they extract profits for themselves, so they say it’s not real.
Not to detract, but I never noticed how phallic Sweden and Norway looked from that angle
Looks like newer euro coins include Norway, but that wasn’t always the case, leading to this unfortunate creation:
He has americans convinced that they need to annex greenland to protect them from Russia and China. For some reason they think China is closer to greenland than to Hawaii …
But Trump loves Russia, aren’t they great? Why would they ever be a threat?
If anything it’s cause for national insecurity, given that if they invade, per NATO rules, an attack on one is an attack on all.
But Trump is used to getting what he wants by breaking the rules and facing no consequences, so I guess it’ll be a FAFO thing.
I must admit, I do fear that if it comes to that NATO will fight the usual way - strong worded letter. For a buffoon who can’t even read and only responds to a fat stick to the face.
This is going to be interesting because Article 5 assumes an attack on a member state by a non-member state.
By attacking Greenland, Trump would violate Articles 1 and 2 (pledging to use peaceful means to settle a dispute and contribute to friendly relations though you could argue he’s violating the latter right now).
I think the whole point of this act is to force NATO to kick the US out of NATO, which is exactly what Russia (and by extension Trump) wants.
I imagine it’s to put defences in the Arctic…
But if Putin and Russia are fantastic and great people why does America need to guard the Arctic?
For those evil Norwegians, they might try to spread universal Healthcare!
It’s the same playbook used by Putin with Ukraine
Probably that “economic freedom safe space” thing he’s been talking about? The one with no rules to follow so the “hard decisions” “rugged individual” “pat’rats” don’t have to put in effort. Isn’t Greenland mostly natives? Yeah that’s probably it.
Greenland is one of the only (the only?) largely indigenous governed country (ish) in the world and one of its official languages alongside Danish is Greenlandic, an inuit language. So, yea, for some shitty old white American dude to continue to demand annexing this country is some fucking wild bullshit.
The most direct route from Russia to the US is North though the Arctic - so during the cold war there was a lot of first strike detection stuff setup in Arctic areas.
The incoming prime minister should challenge Trump to a one on one fight for Greenland. If he refuses, all state heads should just make chicken noises every time they meet him.
feels wrong if the americans don’t wager something. florida, maybe.
That doesn’t sound fair to Greenland if/when Trump loses.
It will look funny on maps when Canada shorts fit better because of that.
It will look funny on the map when something is cut off
Maybe they can just convert it to a cash prize, how much is one Florida worth anyway?
yes but remember; trump lives in florida. so he wouldn’t actually give it up, and they’d be able to taunt him until he dies.
“If we win, we get your country, if we lose, you get this garbage heap.”
I’m sure Florida wouldn’t be a garbage heap if it had proper management.
Yet again President Camacho would be superior
I love this plan.
It is such an insult but he is incapable of empathy, not that he’d care if he could
Danish Defense Committee Chairman Rasmus Jarlov warned that US annexation “would mean war between two NATO countries.”
It’s going to be one NATO country soon if the US really goes through of leaving NATO.
Of one is attacked, it might be 31 countries.
With global warming new trade routes are going to open up through the artic. They will be extremely valuable and the countries geographically positioned to compete for them are going to be Russia, China, Canada, and Greenland. This is why America wants Canada and Greenland so bad and will do whatever it takes to get them.
Despite all the Republican denial, someone must believe in climate change. Wonder how the true-believing cult takes this.
Also, with all the tariffs, why do we need trade routes?America doesn’t want Canada and Greenland trump does
I was surprised to find out this isn’t a new political movement and we have a history of this twisted rhetoric.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movements_for_the_annexation_of_Canada_to_the_United_States
Trump just likes to listen to the fringe youtube historians and economists instead of the ones with real degrees and experience.
Thank you for the link I would like to note that from said link I draw this quote
Since the Treaty of Washington in 1871, when it first de facto recognized the new Dominion of Canada, the United States has never suggested or promoted an annexationist movement in Canada. No serious force has appeared on the American political scene that aimed to persuade or coerce Canadians into joining the United States. And no serious initiative for any move in this direction has come from the Canadian side either.
Trumps trade war with Canada which he said is to force them to submit to annexation is uniquely crazy in modern history.
The fucking nerve for Trump to suggest Zelensky is gambling with WWIII. Ukraine is defending its own nation from invasion and the US is breaking every alliance it can find and causing tensions that remind me all too much of the lead up to WWI.
Trump also undermined Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying it was "very far away
He is aware USA is even further away?
So I got curious and decided to pay a visit to my favorite site to see this… Greenland is about the size of the US Midwest. I did not know that until today.
I’m reasonably certain that Trump thinks Greenland is much larger. He is stupid, after all.
It’s more about the resource extraction rights.
Ahhhhh. NOW the Canada and Greenland thing makes sense. If Trump took over Canada and Greenland, then Russia gains full control of the artic.
That’s an interesting point.
Everything always seems to make a lot more sense when viewed with the “how does this benefit Putin” lens.
Which probably means there’s something in Panama too, and I doubt it’s a canal.
Oh for sure. I just keep seeing Greenland everywhere since it seems to be Trump’s flavor of the week, and knowing it’s not as big as it look on the Mercator projection, I finally decided to see how large it really is.
For our Aussie friends, it’s about the same size as Qld and NSW.
Can they kick out the US and just ask the EU to station troops there instead?
Thanks to Greenland, a voice of sanity, in response to the muttered burblings of a demented turnip. In me you will find yet another US citizen that agrees with you, and respects your soveriegnty. The turnip is using this distraction to rob us blind, I fear.
I don’t think they’re that clever. Seriously. I think that all the “distractions” are crazy things their major supporters want (less regulation on putting raw sewage in drinking water), crazy things their policy architects want for stupid or awful reasons (ending birthright citizenship because you think America should be a white Christian nation), naked adoration for dictators because they’re what running a country like a business looks like, or just the most transparent “negotiation” that burns good will because you don’t understand that getting an agreement is good, and getting an agreement where the other side is happy too is better.
Threaten tariffs and wait a while to let the other side offer something to get you to not do it. Threaten to annex Greenland, and then compromise on guaranteed transit rights in their territorial waters and maybe some resource extraction agreements. Same for the Panama canal.
I wouldn’t say it’s clever either but it’s the gish gallop, it’s like a sportsball play where they Flood The Zone and called their little brothers from the JV team and now those guys are milling about on the field
Inb4 Trump starts invading because 2-3 MAGA nuts from greenland said they wanted to be part of US, so that’s plenty of reason for the whole Greenland to need it as well - “they’ll see why it’s good for them once they’re ours, trust me”.
I wish Trump would shut TF up.
The worst part about him winning the election is that you can’t escape his bullshit.
I have had it with these muthafuckin calls for muthafuckin annexation
I have a hard time believing the public, much less military members, have the stomach to do something like this. There’s zero moral standing in it and it seems like all modern overt military actions by the US needed to have something its participants and supporters could hold up to say “I’m doing this to make the world, and my country, a better and safer place,” even if that publicized nobility turned out to be a farce coughIraqcough (although I am glad Saddam got to experience what it feels like to die). Unless you’re the demigod of a highly programmed autocracy like North Korea, it takes significant buy-in to wage an invasion, war, and occupation. With Greenland being a benign and peace-loving gem of nature, it would absolutely blow my mind if Trump said “CHARGE!” and military members did anything but a limp soulless salute and slow shuffle to mill about stupidly in passive protest.
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war. Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
- Hermann Goering
He’s not wrong, but I don’t think pacifist is the word that should be used to describe the opposition to invading Greenland or Canada, or Panama.
If the right-wing media start inventing stories about Greenland, Canada and Panama being threats to the USA, I don’t trust the US public to see through them. Many will, of course, but then many saw through the Iraq stuff too, just not enough.
I hear Greenland has WMDs - in the form of melting glaciers that will cause some kind of climate catastrophe. /s
The only solution is to preemptively nuke those glaciers so they can’t melt on their own terms.
Genius. If you vaporize them they can’t melt.
The magic of thermonuclear thermodynamics!
For national security reasons the world should build a wall around the US.
…and make Mexico pay for it.
