[NY Post] Trump wants to buy Greenland, again, after claiming US could take back ownership of Panama

https://theconversation.com/in-eyei...american-designs-on-the-arctic-expanse-247276

In eyeing Greenland, Trump is echoing long-held American designs on the Arctic expanse
by Colin Gordon, Professor of History, University of Iowa
Published: January 15, 2025 8:45am EST

At a news conference in early January 2025, President-elect Donald Trump rambled through a grab bag of grievances and proposals, including his disdain for wind power and low-flow showerheads and his thoughts on the possible acquisition of the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland.

On the latter, he mused, “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security.”

The negative commentary in prominent news outlets was swift. Such “vague threats” and “messianic promises” were “shocking … in their craziness,” a harbinger of a “chaotic and stream-of-consciousness presidency, a succession of opinion writers suggested.

Yet, with respect to Greenland, Trump’s proposal has a long history. Here, he is guilty less of territorial ambitions than of saying the quiet part out loud.

Crucial Air Force outpost
In 1823, President James Monroe established the principle that European powers were to defer to the United States on matters pertaining to the Western Hemisphere. While what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries were employed primarily to assert American interests and ambitions in Latin America, they clearly applied to northern neighbors as well.

After the German invasion of Denmark in April 1940, Secretary of State Cordell Hull made this point clear to his Danish counterpart, asserting that "Greenland is within the area embraced by the Monroe Doctrine.”

The two countries signed a “Defense of Greenland” agreement in 1941 that allowed the U.S to “construct, maintain, and operate … landing fields, seaplane facilities, and radio and meteorological installations.” The U.S. pressed to retain its bases after the war, a decision that was formalized by treaty in 1951.

For the U.S., which had a substantial military presence in Greenland by the early 1950s, the territory was crucial as an outpost for the Air Force and as a link in the so-called Distant Early Warning Line that monitored possible Soviet incursions from the north.

In early 1955, almost 70 years to the day before Trump’s recent speech, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed a more radical solution to preservation of American interests in the North Atlantic. In a memorandum for the secretary of defense, titled “Possible Acquisition of Greenland by the United States,” the military leaders reiterated the U.S. position: “Geographically, Greenland is part of the Western Hemisphere and has long been regarded so by the United States.”

“As to whether it would be to the military advantage of the United States to acquire title to Greenland,” the memorandum continued, “the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe it to be axiomatic that sovereignty provides the firmest basis of assuring that a territory and its resources will be available for military use when needed. United States sovereignty over Greenland would remove any doubt as to the unconditional availability of bases.”

A few days later, a shorter version landed on President Dwight Eisenhower’s desk, with the summary assessment that “it would be to our military advantage to acquire title to Greenland from a military viewpoint.”

Such musings, in 1955 or 2025, casually assume the universality of American interests and disregard the sovereignty of allies. By the same token, Trump’s proposal is evidently not just another of his frequently outlandish ambitions, when it has been a fixture of U.S. national security for over 70 years.


Colin Gordon receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation.

​

 

that's actually a pretty interesting thread

 

sorry big guy, hard to catch everything! especially when you've got to stay on your toes for woke123 insults

 

gift link will work for everyone. long article

Why Getting Greenland’s Mineral Riches Won’t Be Easy
Enormous island’s harsh climate, limited infrastructure have kept its rare earths inaccessible

https://www.wsj.com/world/greenland...6?st=sUmHa4&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

Trump Picks a Jet-Setting Pal of Elon Musk to Go Get Greenland
Negotiations over an 836,000-square-mile island may fall to a close friend of Elon Musk with experience in deal-making. Just not that kind of deal-making.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/politics/elon-musk-donald-trump-greenland.html

excerpt:

Ken Howery is a quiet, unassuming tech investor who prioritizes discretion. And yet, he has ended up in the middle of two of the noisiest story lines of the incoming Trump administration.

One is the expanding ambition of Elon Musk, Mr. Howery’s close friend and fellow party-scene fixture since the two helped run PayPal 25 years ago.

The other is the expansionist ambition of Mr. Musk’s boss, President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has set his sights on buying Greenland, the world’s largest island.

As Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Denmark, Mr. Howery is expected to be central to what Mr. Trump hopes will be a real-estate deal of epic proportions. The only hitch is that Denmark, which counts Greenland as its autonomous territory, says the island is not for sale.

Whether he likes it or not, Mr. Howery, a globe-trotter known for his taste for adventure and elaborate party planning, is likely to find himself in the middle of a geopolitical tempest.

Mr. Trump has been explicit about his expectations for his new ambassador filling a once-sleepy post. When he announced Mr. Howery for the role, which requires Senate confirmation, he reiterated his designs on Greenland for the first time since winning the presidency.

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social late last year. “Ken will do a wonderful job in representing the interests of the United States.”

Thanking Mr. Trump on X, Mr. Howery mentioned not just the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen but also the U.S. Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, saying he was eager to “deepen the bonds between our countries.”

On cue, Mr. Musk chimed in: “Congrats! Help America gain Greenland.”

Mr. Howery’s mission is an example of what awaits the crop of Silicon Valley donors who swarmed to Mr. Trump during the campaign and now intend to follow him into public office. While many are seasoned deal-makers, their private sector experience may only go so far in serving the unpredictable Mr. Trump.
​

more at the link

 

link will work for everyone

Denmark Opens Back Channel to Trump to Discuss Greenland
U.S. ally is signaling its willingness to negotiate military and economic matters related to the island but won’t sell it

https://www.wsj.com/politics/nation...e?st=y5b1ko&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...al-ambitions-canada-europe-greenland-00198656

An Expert in Grand Strategy Thinks Trump Is on to Something
Do you want a future in which Canada defects to the EU, Russia rules the Arctic and China runs Latin America? That’s the default outcome of non-action.
By THOMAS P.M. BARNETT
01/16/2025 01:00 PM EST

Our inbound president Donald Trump generates torrents of diplomatic angst with statements about Canada being America’s “51st state,” the national security logic of buying Greenland from allied Denmark, and snatching back the Panama Canal to counter China’s growing economic footprint throughout our hemisphere. Where is all this expansionist energy coming from? How did Trump’s America First isolationism suddenly morph into an Americas First mergers and acquisition (M&A) strategy?

Let’s be clear on who Trump is: The man does not come with a vision of his own making but with a stunningly effective capacity to sense fear within the ranks and weaponize it for political mobilization.

Americans are scared and angry right now, feeling deeply uncertain about the nation’s trajectory and globalization’s increasingly fierce competitive landscape. We want someone strong and confident to tell us how we can be great again without assuming undue global responsibilities and a return to Boomer-esque Cold War-standoffs with both China and Russia.

A tough needle to thread alright, but Trump’s instincts are correct, and he’s uniquely suited for the task.

There is an only-Nixon-can-go-to-China opportunity here. Nixon shocked the world in 1972 by formally recognizing China’s communist regime. Americans trusted him on that bold, history-bending move because he was the quintessential anti-communist. If Trump, the quintessential isolationist and climate change-denier, negotiates US expansionism across North America (Canada, Greenland), then Americans may well trust his national security logic that we’re in a “Race for the Arctic” with both China and Russia amid rising climate change.

Three key trends animate the globe right now: (a) an East-West decoupling dynamic, (b) a re-regionalization imperative along North-South lines that brings “near-shoring” production close to home markets, and (c) a growing superpower clash animating all these “races” — namely, adapting to climate change, winning the energy transition, achieving AI supremacy, etc.

Trump, love him or loath him, sees just enough of this world and the fear it generates to know the right plan of attack.

Trump’s approach to international affairs reflects Americans’ judgment that we are done building a world order — which we’ve overseen from 1954 to 2008 —and now must vigorously embrace an aggressively competitive approach to this multipolar world; in other words, be less the generous market-maker and more the selfish market-player.

The world’s superpowers (U.S., Europe, Russia, India, China) fear one another more and more. We sense an imperative in this re-regionalization/decoupling era — one that screams get yours now before somebody else does!

Russia evinces that ambition in the nastiest ways (see Georgia, Ukraine). China, presently globalization’s premier integrating power, does so systematically with its Belt and Road Initiative, securing long and critical supply chains across the world through that multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure building scheme. India is just beginning to think and act along such lines, for now instinctively pushing back against China’s efforts to integrate South Asia into its global value chains — in effect, boxing in New Delhi’s ongoing “rise.”

Europe and the U.S., with Trump’s return, seem destined to complete their conscious uncoupling like two self-absorbed celebrities whose career needs no longer jibe. And just as Russia has sought to put the pieces back together of its empire, we now spot the same acquisitive rumblings within Western ranks.

Trump has long argued that Europe and Canada both “owe” America vast sums of money for defending them for decades against the Soviet/Russian threat. He now implies that America deserves Greenland as compensation for that strategic debt, arguing that we’ll do a better job of developing and defending Greenland than tiny Denmark has ever managed.

In seeming reply, the august British newspaper, The Economist, calls for the EU, having just cut a landmark trade deal with South America’s Mercosur bloc, to now vigorously invite Canada into its economic union. If that deal makes sense for the European Union, why doesn’t it make similar sense for America when it comes to Canada and Greenland?

Together with Alaska (which we bought from Imperial Russia in 1867), Greenland and Canada comprise North America’s “crown jewels” when it comes to an Arctic revealed by climate change. The warming Arctic possesses almost one-third of the world’s remaining hydrocarbon (oil, natural gas) reserves, along with prodigious amounts of minerals (nickel, zinc, rare earths) critical to both national security and the energy transition.

Does anybody think Canada and Greenland won’t need serious help in standing up to Russia and China’s aggressive ambitions across that vast and strategically crucial landscape?

Or how about China’s recent emergence as primary trade partner and source of investment throughout South America? The Chinese will be more than happy to beggar our neighbors of energy, minerals, and food while climate change devastates these vulnerable economies in the years ahead, knowing full well that the vast numbers of climate migrants escaping that desperate situation will head to North America — not China.

Humanity now enters a decades-long Zone of Turbulence that I describe in my 2023 book America’s New Map: Restoring Our Global Leadership in an Era of Climate Change and Demographic Collapse. Our world system and its major players are being compelled to evolve at what feels like warp speed.

Just like species are compelled by climate change to evolve at thousands of times normal speed, globalization and its pillars are being similarly stressed by a collision of history-twisting transformations ranging from a birth dearth and rapid aging across the Global North to the drought-driven strangulation of agriculture across the Global South to AI’s profound destruction of job markets just as that Global South seeks to cash-in its demographic dividend and achieve deep integration in global value chains.

Up until now, globalization’s integrating forces have unfolded largely along East-West lines. Now, thanks to climate change, our planet’s lower latitudes (closer to the equator) will suffer extreme environmental devastation and thus economic tumult.

The North can build all the walls it wants, but the logic of North-to-South political integration will prevail, echoing the European Union’s logic in integration of former socialist states following the Cold War — namely, it’s better to pre-emptively integrate than suffer long-term disintegrating dynamics.

And here’s the national security kicker: all that North-to-South integration is really an economic and technological race among the North’s superpowers (U.S., EU, India, Russia, China) to capture the long-term brand loyalty of that emergent global majority middle class concentrated across those very same lower latitudes increasingly tormented by climate change.

That evolution of our world system thus requires a very strong empire-building phase. The Tech Bros recognize it for what it is, as does the Kremlin and the Chinese Communist Party. Now Trump seems increasingly locked onto it as the means to establish his legacy: the real-estate magnate who not only betteredAmerica but biggered it.

This is why we must take all this diplomatic jousting seriously: It’s not just Trump, and it’s not just climate change, and it’s not just the “Race for the Arctic,” and it’s not just North-South demographic disparities, and it’s not just the AI sprint or superpowers competing to lock-in strategic resources.

It’s everything everywhere all at once.
​

more

​

 

conclusion

Successful grand strategy is all about flowing with history’s tides instead of swimming against them. That’s how you expand your ranks (more people, more territory, more member-states) while denying such growth to your rivals.

In crass realist terms, this is the world we live in right now — a super-competitive moment. By mid-century, we will all be living in somebody’s slice of our multipolar world.

Washington needs to fully commit to making that future world — or however much of it we can effectively integrate — American in its ethos and rules versus anything else. America remains the kernel code of today’s globalization: our internal rule set of free trade, democratic rule and collective security projected across the world these past eight decades but now encountering firm authoritarian pushback from the likes of China and Russia.

The best way to ensure that future is to re-open these United States to new member-states — the ultimate Trump card in a superpower brand war.

Such ambition and responsibility will define our patriotism this century: We get better by getting bigger, just as we have throughout the vast majority of our history.

However bombastically, Trump points us in the right direction. Ask yourself: Do you want a future in which Canada defects to the EU, Russia rules the Arctic and China runs Latin America? Because that will be the default outcome of our non-action.

This is where Trump’s seemingly absurd ambition punches through our current strategic fog: embracing today’s inconceivable to prevent tomorrow’s inevitable.

That is genuine grand strategy.

But let’s also get more real in our thinking and the terms we offer. Justin Trudeau is right when he says Canada will never become America’s 51st state, but what if it became America’s 51st-through-59th-states? Would that be enough political power and standing for Canadians to choose over admission into the EU? Say, 18 Senate seats and more congressional districts than California’s 52 seats?

That’s a respectful offer.

Greenland holds two seats in Denmark’s 179-member parliament. Does that strike you as more empowering than two seats in the U.S. Senate? How about a $57 billion buy-out package that makes every Greenlander an instant millionaire?

Does Trump have your undivided attention now?

We live in volatile and uncertain times. But it still holds that the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself versus letting others take the lead.

Trump is all about taking the lead in such deal-making. And Trump, perhaps more than any other U.S. political leader out there, recognizes that America’s strategic future will be marked by North-South or hemispheric integration. Trump may discount the ultimate cause of that shift — namely, climate change’s devastation of our planet’s lower latitudes, but he’s already zeroed in on its most disruptive outcome: mass migration from the Global South to the Global North.

America — and Canada, for that matter — can pretend that we can wall ourselves off from that turbulent future, but that is a cruel fantasy. Better to move America’s borders further north and south than to suffer that inescapable pathway — again, the inconceivable pre-empting the inevitable.

Donald Trump may seem as unlikely a messenger from this future as Nixon was during the height of the Cold War (A future global economy dominated by China and America? Are you insane?), but the logic will only grow more formidable over the years.

***
Thomas P.M. Barnett is senior business strategist at Throughline Inc. and the author of America’s New Map. Find his daily newsletter at thomaspmbarnett.substack.com.


​

 

unclear who "assholes" applies to.

I reread the Barnett piece, I do not see where he even mentions "purchasing" in his discussion of Trump's Greenland speculations, other than Trump's own reported words about "buying" Greenland