OPINION:
Maybe he’s bored. Maybe the high of capturing Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela wore off faster than a sugar rush. Or maybe, just maybe, President Trump looked at a map, saw a massive chunk of ice, and thought, “You know what that needs? A Trump Tower and a U.S. flag.”
Whatever the reason — be it a desperate need to deflect from the news cycle or a genuine belief that international borders are merely “suggestions” — the president is back on his favorite hobbyhorse: making Greenland part of America. And if they won’t sell? Well, he’s not ruling out just taking it.
It sounds like a plot point from a bad political satire, but here we are. Fresh off a military operation in Venezuela, the Trump administration has decided that the Arctic is the next frontier for American expansionism. It’s no longer just idle chatter at Mar-a-Lago. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explicitly stated that “acquiring Greenland is a national security priority” and, in a sentence that surely caused a collective spit-take across Europe, noted that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander in chief’s disposal.”
Yes, you read that right. The administration is casually floating the idea of invading Denmark — a founding member of NATO — because the president views a sovereign territory as a distressed asset ripe for a hostile takeover.
At least one diplomatic mind has proffered an idea to simply buy the island. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday told lawmakers that the president would rather buy Greenland than invade it. Mr. Rubio didn’t offer details for the purchase of the island, a sparsely populated autonomous territory ruled by Denmark.
The logic, if you can call it that, is purely transactional. Mr. Trump has viewed this as a “large real estate deal” for nearly a decade. “One way or another, we’re going to get it,” he told Congress last year. It’s the ultimate landlord mindset applied to geopolitics.
Naturally, the people actually living in the real world are horrified. On Capitol Hill, the Republicans remain in a state of frantic damage control, trying to interpret the president’s whims without alienating our oldest allies.
Rep. Don Bacon didn’t mince words. “It’s appalling,” he told reporters. “These are our allies.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick has reduced his foreign policy analysis to a mantra of denial, repeating, “It’s not going to happen,” as if saying it enough times will manifest sanity in the Oval Office.
Even House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers seemed baffled, suggesting this might just be Mr. Trump “priming the pump to make some offer toward the Greenlanders,” though he acknowledged he’d be opposed to jeopardizing NATO.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are oscillating between embarrassment and terror. Rep. Jim McGovern summed up the mood perfectly: “He has lost his damn mind. These guys are deranged. This is more than a difference over policy. These guys are just out of their minds.”
But the administration is doubling down. Top Trump aide Stephen Miller, looking at the geopolitical chessboard with the confidence of a man who has never played the game, claimed, “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”
Sen. Chris Murphy begged to differ, pointing out the existence of Article 5. “That’s what Article 5 says. Article 5 did not anticipate that the invading country would be a member of NATO,” Mr. Murphy noted dryly. “We’re laughing, but this is not actually something to laugh about now because I think he’s increasingly serious.”
Make no mistake, there is value to controlling Greenland. The massive island possesses vast, largely untapped natural resources, including significant deposits of rare earth elements, iron ore, zinc, gold, diamonds, uranium and potential offshore oil and gas, making its mineral wealth a key factor in Mr. Trump’s desire.
But while Mr. Trump dreams of a grand real estate acquisition to cement his legacy, the reality is much colder. China is building a “Polar Silk Road,” Russia is fortifying its northern border, and the U.S. is threatening to invade its own allies.
The leaders of Denmark and Greenland have already issued a joint statement reminding the world that “Greenland belongs to its people.”
But in President Trump’s world, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the other tenth is just finding an attorney — or an army — willing to argue your case.
So much for the “art of the deal.”
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
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