Glad to see that European leaders will not be blackmailed into giving way.
Let’s hope this is a hill Trump dies on.
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News & politics
Greenland Update
(343 Posts)Telegraph today
Trump’s plan to make Greenlanders an offer they can’t refuse
Sounds more than a little ominous?
Really interesting article covering two things
1) Trumps complete “lie” about Russian and China having ships in Greenland water, not ONE local report from Greenland, across many sources, about spitting even ONE ship.
2) Very very interesting info around Greenland’s minerals. A good read if you have time, link below.
It raises yet again how gun-ho Trump is about getting what he wants, lying, cheating and breaking all kinds of protocol because man-child Trump chooses.
My heart goes out to Greenlanders, who appear very content with Denmark and both Greenland and Denmark have cooperated fully with USA re security since the 1950’s.
My view? Come on Europe, pool ALL your resources and stop this idiot before he ruins our entire world with his greed.
What do you think?
Just in case link doesn’t work, salient points from the article are below, warning, it’s long!
.*Trump’s plan to make Greenlanders an offer they can’t refuse
US proposals to buy the island have been met with protests and alarm by locals
Eir Nolsøe is Economics Correspondent at The Telegraph covering stories on government tax and spend, the labour market and monetary policy.
When Aka Binzer-Johnsen prepared her two daughters for school and nursery after the holidays at the start of January, she felt compelled to tell them about Donald Trump. “I asked my daughters if they could remember from last year that Trump really wants our country,” she says. “I tried to explain in a child-friendly way that this is happening again, and if they hear anything, that’s why.”
The 38-year-old mother, her husband Uju and their daughters, aged five and seven, live on the outskirts of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.
Home to just 20,000 people, life in the quiet town with colourful wooden houses normally feels safe and far removed from the world’s troubles.
But the US president’s threats to seize Greenland have brought a crisis to Nuuk’s doorstep. “This was always like a safe little bubble,” says Binzer-Johnsen, who is a project manager for a charity. “That’s what we are used to from growing up here.”
She adds: “Everything has changed so fast. People are very scared, and emotions are heightened. I’ve felt really bad about what is going on. I’ve had sleepless nights.
“I have so many questions, wondering what we are going to do. If I want to protect my family, is this the time to act?
“I constantly feel ready to flee and leave, just for a period. But at the same time, we can’t just stop living. Everything we’ve invested in is here: our dreams and our life.”
Such considerations are now weighing on the minds of many Greenlanders, regardless of the territory’s status as a Nato member and having served as an American ally for more than 80 years.
The fate of the world’s largest island has been thrust back into the spotlight this month following Trump’s capture of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president.
Buoyed by his coup in Latin America, Trump has now set his sights on Greenland, the sparsely populated autonomous Danish territory.
“We need Greenland from a national security situation,” Mr Trump said last week, adding that he may have to choose between preserving Nato or expanding America’s influence in the western hemisphere.
“It’s so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”
The threats have sent alarm bells ringing in Copenhagen and Brussels, prompting stunned European leaders to issue a joint statement saying they will “not stop defending” Greenland.
However, it should not come as a surprise.
The US president has long been fascinated by Greenland, which has been part of the Danish kingdom for hundreds of years, like the Faroe Islands.
Trump first proposed buying the island during his first term in 2019, comparing it to “a large real estate deal”.
Seven years later, he has returned to the issue, alternating between threats of military force and offers to make Greenlanders rich.
All in all, last week’s events suggest the US president may be determined to make Greenlanders an offer they can’t refuse.
However, in Nuuk, the mood is one of anger and defiance.
“He can go f--- himself,” is the verdict from a local pensioner.
So why has the world’s most powerful man decided that, come hell or high water, he must own the world’s largest island?
“The Arctic is the crossroads of the world,” says Dwayne Menezes, founder of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative in London.
“Greenland is strategically located along the shortest air and sea routes between three continents: North America, Europe and Asia.”
The country’s position means it would offer the shortest route for ballistic missiles targeting North America, and it is key to surveillance in the Arctic.
“It also is a vast resource frontier, all of which is becoming increasingly strategically important for the US, but also increasingly accessible because of climate change,” Menezes adds.
The US has cooperated with Greenland and Denmark on national security since the Second World War.
Americans operate the island’s only military base. Some 150 US soldiers staff the Pituffik Space Base on the north-west coast, down from 6,000 during the Cold War.
This is part of a defence agreement that has been in place between the US and Denmark since 1951.
“The US has had such critical infrastructure in Greenland since the Second World War, through the Cold War, and more recently, even now, it plays a very, very important role for the Space Force,” Menezes says.
Experts and locals are also sceptical of US claims that the island’s waters are full of ships from hostile states that pose a threat.
“If there are so many Chinese and Russian ships here, then how can it be that only Donald Trump has seen them?” says Frans Heilmann, the boss of fishing company Sigguk.
Heilmann adds: “All of Greenland is full of fishing trawlers. I have not heard of a single trawler that has spotted either a Russian or Chinese vessel near our coasts.
“I am not sure he [Trump] has much of a conscience. He says Greenland’s strategic position means he needs us for national security.
“But he already has that. That argument is worthless. He’s just after the minerals. He’s a trophy hunter.”
The suspicion that Trump’s interest in Greenland is its vast deposits of rare earths is widespread.
“It’s not really any more about wanting to get Greenland because of security reasons, but coming up with security reasons to get Greenland,” says Menezes.*
The island is rich in resources ranging from uranium that can be used to power nuclear plants to obscure minerals critical for modern-day electronics.*
apple.news/ADUBx4ZdcRbmK5xmG_p4znw
And I should have made that "I had to turn the grill right down to a peep "
When you are colloquially "cooking with gas" you are in full swing and on top of it all. If someone puts your gas at a peep they slap you down enough to deflate you - this is probably an older expression than cooking with gas but the cooking theme is still there.
Anyone who tried cooking in a touring caravan back when everything was powered by gas will remember the experience. One dark evening I cooked sausages under a calor gas grill which was only big enough to brown one slice of toast at a time. The van lighting was a lamp with a small gas mantle. If I turned the grill up enough to have any effect, the light went out. To get light to see anything at all I had to turn the grill right down and cook the sausages s l o w l y. We ate late.
Trump would lay the world waste and bare. And he'll be dead before that comes to be.
Rememebered not as the peace bringer, but a major one who destroyed our lovely planet.
Maremia
Perhaps they have no wish at the moment to mine these resources.
Their country, their choice.
And what you just said, AGAA4. They have above described themselves as content enough. That's rare. Leave them in peace.
Oreo
Aveline
Let him impose tariffs. Europe will pay them. Worth it to put his gas at a peep!
Americans will suffer too.I get the gist of this but what does ‘put his gas at a peep’ mean?
Is this a colloquial term?🤔
Based on typical English idioms and slang, the phrase "Worth it to put his gas at a peep" does not have a commonly recognized standard definition. However, it likely uses "gas" to mean arrogance, boasting, or energy, and "at a peep" to mean reducing it to a very low level or silencing it.
According to AI, it’s a Scottish term Oreo - along the lines of a rebuke?
Good luck with that!
Aveline
Let him impose tariffs. Europe will pay them. Worth it to put his gas at a peep!
Americans will suffer too.
Europe won't have to pay them, Americans will. Tariffs are paid by the importer not the exporter, though they will just add it onto the price to the end consumer, so it'll be John Doe who pays. I don't think that has sunk in to Trump yet.
Aveline
Let him impose tariffs. Europe will pay them. Worth it to put his gas at a peep!
Americans will suffer too.
I get the gist of this but what does ‘put his gas at a peep’ mean?
Is this a colloquial term?🤔
Quite!
No wonder he feels fine about letting Putin march into another country.
Listening to radio 4 this morning it was quoted that 85% of the Greenlanders do NOT want to be taken over in any way by Trump. I was in Greenland last summer and met many people and it was clear that they do not want to be governed by anyone, but themselves. However at the moment they would put up with Denmark being involved , rather than allow this greedy ,selfish,arrogant man to bully and steal to just get what he wants. Even if other countries do not want to suppport Greenland in stopping a Hitler style move, for justice, then surely they can see that once Trump gets away with anything he will just continue. So far it is Venezuela to grab the oil and now Greenland to grab all the minerals etc. What will be next? Whatever he wakes up and thinks he would like to grab next! All decent people should be combining to come together and tell Trump that his plans are illegal and he is behaving like a pirate. We need to be working to stop him right now!!
Aveline
Let him impose tariffs. Europe will pay them. Worth it to put his gas at a peep!
Americans will suffer too.
They will and it’s all so pointless!
Let him impose tariffs. Europe will pay them. Worth it to put his gas at a peep!
Americans will suffer too.
Oreo
I think the service personnel will have everything they need already on the base there, US bases in this country do.
They may or not mind if Greenlanders don’t speak to them.
This whole taking Greenland in this way is bizarre, I think if it goes ahead the US will pay Denmark a fortune.
You cannot buy something, however much you want it and are prepared to pay, even if you’re Trump
Just like Canada, Greenland isn’t for sale and this has been made clear multiple times.
Trump simply doesn’t understand that not everyone has “their price” and not everyone “gotta live a deal”
He can impose tariffs, they’ll just be imposed on them, he attacks he’s loses NATO!
CariadAgain
Allira
Norah
Maremia
I also get the impression, but have no evidence yet, that the USA military is also against 'taking' Greenland.
Could not the military quit their military job?
Why should they?
Morals?
The thought that amuses me that if Trump chucks a load of Americans into squatting in Greenland against the will of the Greenlanders themselves being = has he clicked just how fast the Greenlanders could decide to send the lot of them to Coventry (refuse to socialise with them, refuse to sell them anything, refuse absolutely everything to do with them). Just make their life an absolute misery - as it's a tactic that works with a lot of people. Even the most battle-hardened member of the US troops would probably feel more than a little disheartened when he'd had a dozen Greenlanders walking or driving past him in the street - apparently totally oblivious that there was anyone else anywhere near them.
Military personnel sign up for a specified period of time.
It's not like a job where you can give a week's or month's notice.
petra
CariadAgain
I don’t think the lack of integration would worry the us military.
The population of Greenland is 56,000 people.
They’ll be lucky if the see any people.
The Danish Royal family and their guests visit often, they are very close and the Danish retired Queen is extremely fond of Greenland
Threats of tariffs has not had the effect Trump wants.
European leaders including the UK.have responded strongly to threats from the US.
Trump says he will buy Greenland.
Good to see Europe standing together to defend their fellow NATO countries.
Oreo
I think the service personnel will have everything they need already on the base there, US bases in this country do.
They may or not mind if Greenlanders don’t speak to them.
This whole taking Greenland in this way is bizarre, I think if it goes ahead the US will pay Denmark a fortune.
Denmark will never sell for sure
CariadAgain
I don’t think the lack of integration would worry the us military.
The population of Greenland is 56,000 people.
They’ll be lucky if the see any people.
CariadAgain
I've not seen news re the Native American Indians! Quite prepared to believe he's done that though. Do you have a link to that info?
(Thinks if only our darn newspapers didn't waste so much of their space printing stuff about sports people/influencers/royal families/etc and printed some news instead).
Try The Guardian - they barely mention the Royals and the Sports section is separate from the rest.
Surprised that nobody seems interested in the plan Trump has to raise tariffs for the UK and others over the Greenland row.
In the middle of this horror story, one thing intrigues me, the " threat" of tariffs.
So, American consumers are going to pay the price on imports from countries Mr Trump is feels angry with: such statesmanlike behaviour.
O
The Congress and the Senate are both against this daft notion. This might just be Trump's Waterloo. I do hope so.
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