Hands Off Greenland!

 If ever there was a reason to invoke the 25th amendment, this was it:

But here was Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent defending his sulking Commander-in-Chief. Not surprisingly, the Dow took a nose dive as the letter followed a rant on Truth Social that DJT would be levying 10% tariffs on European countries that sent troops to Greenland in defense of its sovereignty, and that he would up the tariffs to 25% if Norway, I mean Denmark didn't sell the island nation to him by June.

The letter and the rant were both filled with crazy assertions that would make any reasonable person's head spin. Even Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy called the idea of invading Greenland "weapons-grade stupid." Yet, Trump and his minions continue to insist that the acquisition of the icy domain is of vital interest to American national security. They all made the rounds on news programs defending this view much to the chagrin of Senate Republicans who have been trying to assure Danish and Greenlandic representatives that the US has no such intentions.

The US has never been in this place before. William Seward floated the idea in 1868 but Andrew Johnson didn't make any such plea for the need to annex Greenland, nor did succeeding presidents when the idea came up again. They all let it go, but not Trump. He continues to insist that he has to have it regardless of the circumstances, leading one to wonder if we are seeing the final stages of a dementia that has been growing since he first assumed office in 2017.

My first reaction to this letter was that it was a hoax. Where's his ridiculous signature and why is he calling himself DJT? I don't think Andy Borowitz could have come up with a more absurd letter to "Jonas." Trump's frustration appears entirely derived from having been passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize this past October.  It doesn't matter that Maria Corina Machado literally shared the award with him, leading to a whole host of facetious memes where others shared their trophies and medals with him. Surely, DJT isn't so vain as to actually make this an excuse for invading Greenland?

Sadly he is. More so, he is pathetically ignorant of the "rights to ownership," which he called into question, suggesting that he can simply claim Greenland by eminent domain like some overbearing landlord. Literally no one disputes Greenland's sovereignty or that it is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Even past presidential administrations recognized that Greenland simply wasn't theirs to take. I suppose, DJT sees himself as Rock Hudson in Ice Station Zebra, securing the frozen island from pernicious forces, citing Russia and China.

 

However, he recently ruled out Russia as an aggressor, having personally invited Vladimir Putin to join his Gaza Peace Board. Let the oxymorons fly! As for China they are busy doing naval maneuvers around Taiwan, which they covet far more than Greenland. So it seems the only threat to Greenland is Donald Trump, which protestors in Nuuk and Copenhagen let him know, "Hands off Greenland!"

At some point Congressional Republicans have to do an intervention. It is not just Trump who has flied off half-cocked but his entire administration. Trump is just the most visible with his infantile rants, which his representatives try to couch in more mature terms. 

There is a civil way to go about this, as various tech billionaires have done. It is not like Greenland isn't amenable to foreign investment. However, extracting the rare minerals locked under the frozen expanses is not so easy, otherwise Danish investors would have done this long ago. The cost of extraction far outweighed the market value of the rare minerals. Maybe now it is more lucrative and joint exploration efforts can be carried out. I'm sure Denmark and Greenland would welcome such enterprises.

Unfortunately, this isn't the way DJT operates. It is all or nothing for him. He's like a petulant bully trying to push all the other kids out of the sandbox, in this case NATO, which he has directly challenged by undertaking this absurd initiative. 

NATO members, being a bit naive, thought this was a way of threatening them to provide more security for Greenland and so several member states sent naval forces to the island to ward off these imaginary threats that Trump continually refers to. Our deeply insecure president took this as a threat to his fragile ego and has vowed fierce reprisals. I said to my wife this strikes me as a pretense to pull the US out of NATO or disband the organization all together, which Trump has long been critical of.

At that point he would be handing his comrade in arms, Vladimir Putin, a huge gift. Although I well imagine European nations would be quick to pick up the pieces and put them back together again. The long standing trans-Atlantic ties will be broken, at least with the US, but they would be able to fend for themselves against Russia provided DJT doesn't lend support to his buddy Vlad. There's no telling with him.

Is this the road Congressional Republicans want to take? I would think not but they haven't shown much resistance to Trump, so anything is possible, especially with a man clearly no longer in command of his cognitive abilities.