"The American president's latest gambit, announced in the usual way, on Truth Social, threatens to slap tariffs on a set of European countries who have deployed small military contingents to Greenland and refused to support his stated desire to take over the Arctic island, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The latest Trump threat is expressed at unusual length. It mixes grievance, chest thumping, and threats, in typical Trump style."
"What's the grievance? That Denmark (and all the countries of the European Union) have been subsidized by the United States. No American tariffs, no renumeration for US protection (it's a racket after all). What's Denmark ever done for Greenland? Nothing, other than deploying "two dogsleds." Trump likes to make fun of the Danish Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, but it is actually an elite naval unit that conducts patrols in the forbidding northern and eastern coastal regions of Greenland."
"What's the chest thumping? That only the United States, under "PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP" (yes, CAPS) can "play in this game." The game: stopping China and Russia from taking over Greenland. There are three things, minimum, wrong with this. First, great power competition isn't a game. Second, and more importantly, neither Russia nor China has the military capacity or shows any intent to take over Greenland."
Trump announced on Truth Social a threat to impose tariffs on several European countries that have sent small military contingents to Greenland and opposed his bid to take over the island. The complaint centers on perceived American subsidization of Denmark and the EU and mocks Danish Arctic patrols as merely "two dogsleds," despite the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol's elite role and recent Danish defense investments, including Arctic patrol vessels and fifteen additional F-35 jets in 2025. The rhetoric frames great-power rivalry as a game, inaccurately inflates Russian and Chinese threats to Greenland, and risks undermining NATO collective security.
Read at The Walrus
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]