Ignore anything you hear from Donald Trump about Russian and Chinese ships threatening Greenland. Or JD Vance claiming the Danes have failed in their job to protect the island. And all the theories about taking control of Greenland’s immense wealth are secondary to the real story.
Donald Trump got the idea for invading Greenland from a mascara mogul.
This detail is important to know because it shines a light on MAGA’s gangster kingdom. Going after Greenland would destroy 80-plus years of Western alliances. It will undermine NATO at a crucial moment. But it all goes back to Ronald Lauder of Estée Lauder telling Donald that Greenland was easy pickings.
This revelation comes from the book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.
A billionaire pal suggested that taking over Greenland would be a cakewalk for the United States. Trump was hooked. After the meeting, he called John Bolton and said “A friend of mine, a really, really experienced businessman, thinks we can get Greenland.”
Trump then posted on social media that people in Greenland wanted him to take them over. “I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA’,” he claimed.
The pressure on Greenland comes after the attack on Venezuela.
The Venezuela shakedown targeted the increasingly frayed international rule of law. An attack on Greenland would lead to the collapse of the West. It is like a frightening replay of the occupation of the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland.
Then came Poland. The difference is that the Nazis were working to a plan. Trump is working on whim and ego.
Even if the threat remains at the level of stupid online taunting from the White House, the threat to Greenland is serious. It is destroying the Western alliance and acting like a pincer movement for Vladimir Putin as he pressures Ukraine and the Baltics.
If Trump moves on Greenland, Canada is next. And then we will be facing the age of the gangsters, or as French President Macron says, a world reduced into a “robbers’ den.”
What are the likely next moves?
Clearly, we can expect more chaos from the whackjob social media posts by Trump and his key minions. If those threats increase, it will force Denmark to invoke Article IV of the NATO charter. Article IV is the trigger move that sets the stage for Article V, the military defence of Greenland by NATO allies.
“The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”
What then? Does Donald TACO?
He may very well back down and try to change the channel by threatening a nation in the global south. Even so, NATO would be permanently compromised, and a new set of democratic alliances would have to be figured out.
In scenario two, Trump reacts badly to Greenland/Denmark standing up to him and escalates. He could move more American troops onto the US military installation in Greenland. At this point, the danger of a shooting match escalates.
And if Denmark invokes Article IV, it would see the American military facing down against French warships and Canadian ground troops. This would bring us into completely uncharted territory, a crisis unlike anything since 1939.
There is a third scenario: Europe abandons Greenland rather than risk a direct confrontation. I think this may have been more likely a year ago, but Trump has been so brazen that it is forcing the Europeans and Canada to dramatically rethink our traditional subservience to the mighty America.
I attended the NATO parliamentary meetings in Brussels last February, and had the unsettling feeling that if push came to shove between Canada and the United States, our European allies might just take a dive.
In those meetings, toxic Republican representatives acted like schoolyard bullies. Everyone knew that Trump was threatening and belittling our sovereignty, but none of the major NATO nations seemed to want to be anywhere near Canada.
European allies were doing everything they could to paper over the growing divide and to pretend that things were normal. When we all knew that normal was gone.
Things came to a head in one session where the NATO representatives went out of their way to please the Americans. In doing so, the session’s spokesman threw in a dig at our Canadian delegation:
“Oh and Canada, you need to start pulling your weight.”
By this point, I was fed up with tiptoeing around the big, ugly elephant in the room. I stood up and challenged the NATO chair.
“We have family lying in a cemetery just 15 minutes up the road.
Canadians lost a lot of young men to free you from fascism, so don’t you ever tell us to pull our weight.”
The place went silent.
I then pointed to the smirking American delegation and said,
“We have a nation here that is ridiculing our country and threatening our sovereignty. Canada wants to know if NATO stands for something or is just a club.”
A surprising thing happened. People started to clap.
Afterward, I was approached by representatives from the Baltic states, as well as new members Sweden and Finland, who shared their concern that NATO needed to start being bolder in the face of both the American and Russian threat.
Nonetheless, I came home feeling that we were on our own.
How much things have changed over the course of the year.
In that time, Canada has stepped up on the global stage. We have military trainers in Ukraine. Former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is now a top advisor to President Zelensky. Canada is establishing a permanent base in Latvia. We have opened a consulate in Greenland.
The European allies are looking to Canada as a credible force in working with them to maintain an increasingly shaky world order. We no longer seem so alone.
But it all comes down to Greenland.
If Trump continues to push his dangerous rhetoric, the Kingdom of Denmark will be forced to call his bluff. This is the moment when our democratic allies will have to face down the gangster. If we fail, the world will be looted by the robber’s den.
Things will get very tense if Canada and the Europeans do stand up, but I don’t see that we have another choice.
