Why Greenland? What is Trump up to? Is “Fortress The Americas” in the making?
You all should watch Trump’s maneuvers to consolidate Washington’s hold over Denmark. It is easy to underestimate Trump or what he is hopes to accomplish foreign policy-wise. The responses both from the Danish government and the Greenland authorities essentially a kind of public “collective bargaining” over the island’s fate, just a small part of the emerging “Great Game” pitting the USA/NATO against China, Russia, Iran and the emerging BRICS bloc (look it up) in particular
It ‘s reminiscent of how, in the early 1980s, Reagan dealt with the U.S. defeats in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique in the 1970s. Reagan didn’t challenge larger powers – USSR (then), China or the like but attacked one of the weakest link at the time: Grenada in the name of defending U.S. medical students on the island who were not at all threatened.
Rather than start his foreign policy adventures with running into a wall either with China or Russia – where it is likely he’ll look bad and won’t get ANYTHING done either on Ukraine, Middle East (Gaza genocide) or the South China Sea, the bully that Trump is/was/will always be targeted one of the smaller countries in the European Union (and also in NATO), Denmark.
As such it is more a sign of U.S. foreign policy weakness than strength. Trump’s foreign policy – is essentially one of regional retrenchment. The policy has a number of approaches – the key being for Washington to consolidate its control over North, Central and S. America either de facto or de jure – it matters little both for strategic reasons – great access to interfere with Arctic maritime traffic crossing the Arctic Ocean from E. Asia to Europe and to consolidate Washington’s hold on Greenland’s rich store of minerals, oil and gas, thus providing insurance for the USA should China continue to ban the sale of its great store of rare earth minerals.
A friend living in Hong Kong made the following commentary …
Denmark sent Trump team private messages on Greenland. Denmark sent private messages in recent days to President-elect Trump’s team expressing willingness to discuss boosting security in Greenland or increasing the U.S. military presence on the island, two sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios.
Danish leaders are spineless, Trump was testing the waters, now Trump knows Danish leaders are very weak, he will destroy them. Trump doesn’t respect weakness. Danish leaders should have read Trump’s book : “the art of the deal”, at this rate Trump might be able to get Greenland for free and ask Denmark to pay compensations.
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 
Last week I had a conversation with a neighbor who is a US/ Danish citizen. In her youth, she would travel to the Virgin Islands to vacation as there were some places there where she cold find people who “still” spoke Danish. Why “still”?
She said that in 1915, the US told Denmark that the VI was to be turned over to the US for $15 Mn. If the Danes refused, the US would just take them. The deal was sealed, and Denmark got paid a pittance and the people got a new master.
Quite a change from the 10th Century when Danegeld was what the Brits and French paid the Danes to NOT plunder their lands. Not a surprise, I guess that a millennium can create such a massive reversal.
Best,
Gary Anderson
Unable to bully Russia or China – Washington is picking on smaller fish. Classic bully as the story you related suggests. Strategically Greenland would give the US the chance to interfere with Chinese (especially) and Russian maritime trade at the exit of the Arctic Ocean … and although I can’t confirm it the reports coming out suggest trillions – not billions – of dollars in minerals, including rare earth minerals that China is now restricting exporting – a response to U.S. sanctions. That’s the heart of the matter from what I can tell and ALTHOUGH I doubt that the U.S. will annex either Canada, Greenland or Mexico – they will ratchet up their control of the economies and mineral wealth of all of these. Finally this is a BIPARTISON effort – that has been going on behind the scenes for sometime – only difference between Trump and Biden is that the latter was exploring these possibilities more quietly while, Trump being Trump, announced these initatives to the world to gain political points prior to formally taking office. He’s not going to get any diplomatic victories with China or Russia – so he picks on a small country that he can boss around so he can declare a foreign policy victory, give him some momentum in this field. Actually, while the style is classic Trump blather… it was a clever – if insideous and arrogant move – and I believe he just might get away with it – and then exaggerate and amplify its meaning.