By treaty with Denmark the United States already has the right to build as many military bases as it wants on Greenland.
By NATO treaty the United States has sworn to come to the defense of a member state. So, if China or Russia set its sights on Greenland the United States would be obligated to defend it.
So, why does Donald Trump fail to recognize America’s already confirmed military options when talking about Greenland’s vulnerability?
Because what the United States does not have in Greenland—and what Trump obviously covets—is the frozen island’s vast mineral resource wealth buried under its ice.
Trump is a transactional animal. Removing Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela was not about arresting a drug lord dictator. It was about seizing the country’s oil while keeping intact Maduro’s henchmen to protect the oil for America.
If Trump cannot see himself or his family and well-heeled associates being enriched he cares not for world affairs or international protocols.
What’s your bet? How quickly will the Trump family pounce on the island to set up with their cronies exploitive corporations to “take Greenland to the cleaners”?
I’m guessing that within days of Trump’s imperialistic, illegal land grab he will proudly announce “multi-billion dollar” initiatives by his cohorts. The incorporation paperwork is probably already being prepared, awaiting only a filing date.
A forceful taking of Greenland, even with just sporadic resistance, will require the imposition of protracted martial law, accompanied, most probably, by Trump invoking the Insurrection Act to quell domestic opposition to his piracy.
Why would Trump, with just three more years in his second and final constitutional term of office, undertake an action that couldn’t possibly reap real benefits till well past his legal residency in the White House?
It leads one to reason that he doesn’t plan to leave the gilded, ever expanding entity he is building for himself and the 1,000 fat cats he will host in his “big beautiful ballroom.”
Mitch McConnell and the Trumpian justices on the Supreme Court have given us a Teflon Don who is wasting little time destroying our republic.
Greenlanders will find active resistance is futile. Dangerous. Deadly. Americans living under the cloak of the Insurrection Act will find a similar fate.
Greenland has too few citizens to qualify for statehood. But Canada does. Will our neighbors to the north start losing sleep over Trump’s real-estate-developer-mentality to own all he surveys?
