The president ordered a successful kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and he seems to be feeling his oats. After months of apparently forgetting about his deranged idea to conquer Greenland by force, it is now back under discussion, and Trump seems to be actually serious this time. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that a “range of options” are under consideration, including “utilizing the U.S. military.”
Last summer, I spent over a month reporting on Greenland, including visiting its capital, Nuuk, for over a week, where I talked to all kinds of folks. When I asked about Trump’s annexation threats, the overwhelming reaction was bafflement. What on earth could the point possibly be? What could America possibly get from invasion and annexation that it does not already have?
The answer on any grounds—morality, self-interest, national security, or plain common sense—is: nothing. These are the ravings of a degenerate monster, the worst person ever to occupy high office in this country, who in his dotage is indulging every one of his numerous awful instincts. This idea is entirely cruel, brutish stupidity.
Let me first talk about natural resources. In my reporting, I learned that while Greenland does have a lot of mapped mineral deposits, likely very few of these are commercially exploitable. Almost all of the island is buried under hundreds or thousands of feet of ice, and it’s located in one of the most difficult and remote parts of the world. There are no internal roads between the few cities, and many of the sea-lanes are clogged with ice for half the year. The handful of airports are routinely shut down because of fog.
Outside of a few convenient spots, any mining venture would have to build an entire infrastructure complex from scratch—ports, roads, power generation, housing, water treatment, and so on—and still deal with heavy transport costs. In any case, should some deposit prove promising, Greenland would most likely be happy to partner with any interested American company to develop it.
In short, Greenland is an exceptionally difficult place to scratch out a living, and it’s taken decades of grinding effort from the island’s residents—and a large ongoing subsidy from the Danish government—for it to develop a reasonably prosperous economy.
Now, Greenland is important for American security, but the U.S. military already has full access to the place, and Trump’s lunatic belligerence might cause untold damage. Indeed, the entire U.S. defense posture since the Second World War takes a working relationship with Denmark, Greenland, and Canada—which Trump has also threatened with violent annexation—entirely for granted. Greenland hosts the Pituffik Space Force base, and more importantly, is part of an elaborate network of military radar installations stretching from western Alaska across northern Canada, Greenland, and Britain that is meant to provide warning of a Russian nuclear attack. It’s a core part of America’s nuclear deterrence strategy: Russia (or anyone else) cannot carry out a successful nuclear first strike to the north because it will be detected in time to launch a retaliatory strike.
It follows that Trump’s Greenland threats themselves pose a severe danger to American national security. These radar sites are way out in the middle of nowhere and largely undefended from ground attack—with only about 150 troops at the Pituffik base. Neither Denmark nor Canada could possibly win a straight military fight with the United States, but they could inflict stupendous damage on American security with a few well-placed bombs or missile strikes. Take out Site J near the Pituffik base, and you punch a big hole in America’s nuclear warning system, and raise the risk of a first strike. (Britain could theoretically do something similar, but I would bet money Prime Minister Starmer wouldn’t have the stones to do it even if American troops were kicking down the doors of his own house.)
Nuclear deterrence is one of those things whose potential abandonment is so horrific that any rational person will do basically anything to avoid disrupting it. Would the Russians or Chinese attempt to take advantage of a void in America’s nuclear detection system? I doubt it, but I would much, much rather not find out.
It likely never occurred to American defense planners that the American president might incite, for no discernible reason, Canada or Denmark to attack critical nuclear deterrence infrastructure that the U.S. military paid billions to construct. The very idea is so paint-blisteringly insane that only one person in a million would even think of it. Unfortunately, the American people elected that person president.
What I find most outrageous about all this is that while Greenland started off as the typical abused European colony, over the years this relationship has evolved into a reasonably decent partnership. Greenlanders have representation in the Danish parliament, extensive economic support, access to Danish social benefits (like free universal health care), and the ability to declare independence if they so wish. It’s a practically unique example of a former imperial power genuinely attempting to do right by a former nonwhite colony.
And now this disgusting madman proposes to barge in and wreck everything about Greenland, including American national security, just to indulge a degenerate love of conquest, bullying, and domination for their own sake. Denmark and the rest of NATO should start taking this threat seriously.