The American President’s latest obsession with Greenland has escalated as several European leaders signed a joint letter that strongly condemns Trump’s attempts to force the annexation of Greenland and Denmark. Conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s paper has taken a particularly brutal stance against this move by the President, as an editorial piece harshly criticized Trump’s relentless pursuit of Greenland.
According to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, “For more than 75 years, the fondest dream of Russian strategy has been to divide Western Europe from the U.S. and break the NATO alliance.” It further added, “That is now a possibility as President Trump presses his campaign to capture Greenland no matter what the locals or [its Danish owner think].”
As Trump’s campaign has been condemned by European leaders, he threatened tariff rates at 10% until February, which would then increase to 25% by June, if a deal is not guaranteed by then. The WSJ editorial board commented on this as well, writing, “This bullying plays poorly with the European public, making it harder for politicians to give Mr Trump what he wants on Greenland or anything else.”
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Moreover, “The message to these countries is that no deal with Mr Trump can be trusted because he’ll blow it up if he feels it serves his larger political purposes,” the editors added.
Besides the WSJ editors, Camilla Siezing, Chair of the Joint Association Inuit, commented on this issue, saying, “We are demonstrating against American statements and ambitions to annex Greenland. We demand respect for the Danish Realm and for Greenland’s right to self-determination.”
Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, explained, “A conflict or attempted annexation of the territory of a NATO member by another NATO member would be the end of the world as we know it – and which for many years guaranteed our security.”
However, despite such clear critique of his actions, Trump does not seem to be the one to let his ambition of getting Greenland go. Moreover, after his unethical attack on Venezuela went successfully and his administration captured the country’s President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, Trump’s ambitions of encroaching on other lands seem to have grown.
While Trump has repeatedly claimed to be the President of Peace and has demanded that he has stopped 8 wars and thus deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, his actions do not seem to match his words.
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Interestingly, in a recent message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump announced that he no longer felt the need to be the champion of peace as he had been snubbed by the Nobel Committee.
Trump’s message made no sense as the nominees and recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize are not decided by the Norwegian Government. However, Trump has proved enough times that he is not the one to care about facts, and therefore, he felt it was appropriate to send a message like that to Støre, that too after Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado handed over her Peace Prize to him.
Now, with mounting pressure from various European countries and a threat to NATO itself, it would be interesting to see if Trump reconsiders his ambition of taking over Greenland or decides to proceed, regardless of the consequences.
