Still Looking For A Legacy Beyond "The Worst President In History," Trump Wants To Buy Greenland

With the glaciers melting, maybe Fatty envisions opening a golf resort

Trump seems to be catching on that a Great Wall of China along the southern border, viewable from space, is not going to be his legacy, so... reported the Wall Street Journal's Vivian Salama Thursday, he decided to try for an Alaska-type acquisition for his shaky legacy-- or a modern day Louisiana Purchase. "Trump," she wrote, "made his name on the world’s most famous island. Now he wants to buy the world’s biggest. The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer’s imagination, according to people familiar with the deliberations, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea." The U.S. tried, unsuccessfully, to buy Greenland in 1867 and then again in 1946, when Truman offered the Danes 100 million for it.

Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it was a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination that will never come to fruition. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort were serious.

With a population of about 56,000, Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen. Mr. Trump is scheduled to make his first visit to Denmark early next month, although the visit is unrelated, these people said.

U.S. officials view Greenland as important to American national-security interests. A decades-old defense treaty between Denmark and the U.S. gives the U.S. military virtually unlimited rights in Greenland at America’s northernmost base, Thule Air Base. Located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it includes a radar station that is part of a U.S. ballistic missile early-warning system. The base is also used by the U.S. Air Force Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The U.S. has sought to derail Chinese efforts to gain an economic foothold in Greenland. The Pentagon worked successfully in 2018 to block China from financing three airports on the island.

...Though it has vast natural resources across its 811,000 square miles, Greenland relies on $591 million of subsidies from Denmark annually, which make up about 60% of its annual budget, according to U.S. and Danish government statistics.

On Thursday, when the news broke in the U.S., everyone in Denmark was fast asleep. When they woke up this morning, Danish politicians heaped scorn on the idea. Even the right-wing People's Party, which is aligned with Trump's brand of fascism, was openly disdainful. Their foreign affairs spokesman, Soren Espersen, said in a radio interview earlier today that "If it is true that he has those thoughts, then it is definitive proof that he has gone crazy. I must say it as it is: The idea that Denmark should sell 50,000 citizens to the United States is completely insane." According to Reuters, Danish politicians poured scorn on the idea. Former prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen: "It must be an April Fool’s joke... but totally out of season."

Politicians in Greenland were equally contemptuous of the idea. Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a member of the Danish Parliament from Greenland: "I am sure a majority in Greenland believes it is better to have a relation to Denmark than the United States, in the long term. My immediate thought is 'No, thank you.'"

Rufus Gifford was the U.S. ambassador to Denmark while Obama was president. (Trump has replaced him with Carla Sands, big-time GOP campaign contributor and Trump bundler, a prominent California real estate agent, former actress (The Bold And The Beautiful and The Deathstalkers and the Warriors From Hell) and chiropractor, who holds a degree from Life Chiropractic College in a Hayward, California.) Ambassador Gifford-- though not Carla-- was active on Twitter yesterday: