Sometimes it can be difficult trying to write a blog. The first thing you have to do is find a topic. Having tried many, you give most of them up because you don’t know what to do with them. So, you flounder around some more.
And then a topic becomes so obvious you have to pursue it.
So, here is another blog about our favourite wanabe dictator and land
developer, Mr. Trump. Not only are his ICE agents harassing people in different
cities, most notably right now in Minneapolis, they are attacking them and in
at least one case, killing a US citizen. ICE has been called Trump’s private
militia.
If that isn’t enough, he has decided, in his land developer
mind, to acquire Greenland. He has
threatened the country that does “own” Greenland, Denmark, and any European
country that opposes his with another tariff war. He says it for national
security reasons, but that argument is, at best, tenuous. Note that the US has
military basing rights in Greenland and still has a major military base at
Thule (now called Pituffik Space Bsae) in north-western Greenland, currently housing
a surveillance sensor system to detect missile activity coming over the pole.
It has been there since the 1950s. There is no reason to believe that if it
were diplomatically requested, additional US military bases would not be
granted by the Danish government. So
much for the national security argument.
The other argument put forward is access to rare earth and
critical minerals. But that is what international trade is for. US companies should be able to get mineral
rights and set up mining operations for export from Greenland to the US or any
other country. It is done all over the
world.
What he probably wants is to be able to claim that the US is
now the largest country in the world. He
probably sees it as a great place for a Trump hotel and maybe even a golf
resort. Notice it is not most of the US population that wants this, it is
President Trump and some of his cohorts.
If I were Denmark, I would tell him they would sell the
island . . . for one hundred trillion (that’s trillions, not billions) Euros.
If he baulks at this price, then I would raise the price to one hundred and
fifty trillion Euros. Insist on Euros, because to acquire that much money would
depress the US dollar as he tries to acquire the Euros. Is it practical?
Possibly not, but it would undoubtedly anger him. Then he would have to back
off, or take more aggressive action. That would undoubtedly cause a major
breach with the only allies he really has.
