Make no mistake. President Donald Trump’s lust for Greenland is personal, not strategic. He made that clear – if anyone ever doubted it – in a weekend letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
Never enamored of the facts, Trump conveniently ignores that Greenland is part of Denmark, not Norway, and that the independent Nobel Committee – not the Norwegian government – awards the prize. More importantly, as Trump knows, a 1951 US-Denmark treaty gives America permanent rights to maintain military bases in Greenland. What’s missing? The billionaire real estate developer says it is “psychologically important” to him to own it. Not for any strategic value: just his ego.
As NATO allies line up in support of Denmark, Trump announced he will slap tariffs on all who oppose his grab. He has not ruled out using military force to take Greenland if Denmark doesn’t do as he demands.
Effects of the Greenland crisis
An unintended consequence of the Greenland crisis has been to unify Europeans and force them to further question American trustworthiness, while focusing more on military self-reliance. They fear Trump’s transactional, impulsive, and vindictive approach is shattering the longstanding alliance.
That message should resonate loud and clear in Jerusalem, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains disastrously infatuated with the volatile, often irrational American leader.
Trump, the self-crowned great peacemaker, is threatening war – or waging it – not only against Greenland and Denmark but also against Canada, Panama, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico – and his own local Minnesota.
The Washington Post, which last year shifted to a go-easy approach toward the Trump administration, charged that the president has “unleashed a trade war” and “sparked the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations.”
If the US already has full base rights, what does Trump really want? The world’s largest island (not counting the “continent” of Australia) – three times the size of Texas, with a population that couldn’t fill a college football stadium – is rich in rare earth elements, uranium, gold, and offshore oil and gas. (Venezuela wasn’t really about cocaine.)
The idea was reportedly planted by his old pal, multimillion-dollar contributor and billionaire cosmetic heir Ronald Lauder. The World Jewish Congress president, who has extensive business interests on the island, has said, “Beneath its ice and rock lies a treasure trove of rare-earth elements,” among other assets.
Trump also seeks territorial acquisition for his imperial legacy of expanding America’s borders. His rationale is not unlike that of Russia’s Vladimir Putin in trying to take Ukraine – national defense, national pride, and empire-building.
America's strained international ties
The Greenland gambit is Trump’s latest move in America’s retreat from global leadership. He has been a harsh critic of NATO and has frequently threatened to withdraw from the alliance. Chartered in 1949 at a dangerous moment in the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has successfully served as a barrier to Soviet expansion and military threats.
Under Trump, America is actively and unilaterally dismantling the global order it erected in the wake of World War II.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that a US move on Greenland would mean the end of the NATO alliance.
No one could be happier about that happening than Putin. Russia’s goal for generations has been to weaken and destroy NATO, and Trump appears to be playing his useful idiot. Europeans are united in the fear that if Russia takes Ukraine, it won’t stop there.
Trump, known for holding grudges, still smarts over the derisive laughter of world leaders during his swaggering 2018 United Nations General Assembly speech. This month, the US withdrew from 66 UN and other international organizations, and he announced he’s starting his own mini-version of the UN, bypassing the world body. He calls it the Board of Peace, and he of course is its chairman. Its role remains amorphous, but world leaders are invited to buy a seat for a mere $1 billion each.
Trump is a master of diversion, and keeping attention focused on Greenland takes it off the release of the long-delayed Epstein files. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that the president told her many that his “friends will get hurt” if his pedophile pal’s papers go public. Trump may constantly boast that “America is respected again… like never before,” but he is disliked and distrusted as few presidents before him have been – both at home and abroad.
America’s ties with its historic and closest allies are badly strained – and likely to get much worse. A Marist poll showed a clear majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of foreign policy and think his decisions have weakened the United States on the world stage. A CNN survey found that nearly three in five Americans describe his first year back in office as a failure.
Polling by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reveals that “most Americans believe the United States is declining in global power and influence.” His approval ratings at home are under water in nearly every category.
The United States was a global leader in humanitarian, economic, educational, and democratic assistance until Trump closed the US Agency for International Development last year. Harvard’s School of Public Health reported that shutting down USAID “has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition.” Most of them were African children.
“Trump’s belligerent and unpredictable trade policies” are encouraging America’s trading partners “to take their business elsewhere,” reports the Associated Press.
China – which just reported a record global trade surplus –is moving in to fill the vacuum left by Trump, along with Russia. Europe is making plans to move forward without us. The EU has just inked a major free trade agreement with South America and is looking to expand trade across Asia.
Just a year ago, Trump stood at the US Capitol – which his followers had desecrated four years earlier – and said, “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.”
Instead, he has “led a sustained assault on the foundations of the global order,” wrote Prof. Amitav Acharya of American University. “He has nakedly flouted international law, wrecked the system of global trade with unilateral tariffs on scores of countries, and withdrawn the United States from important multilateral bodies.”
None of that is good for Israel, which relies on strong, steady, and effective American leadership in the global arena for its own long-term security.
As for that Nobel Peace Prize he covets, Norway’s message – in Brooklynese – is “fuhgeddaboudit.”
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.