I agree with Sen. John Fetterman that it’s not bonkers for the United States to discuss purchasing Greenland from Denmark. As he says, we did the Louisiana Purchase and Seward’s folly, and both worked out quite well for the country. There are military and commercial reasons to have an interest in Greenland, but it has to be something that Denmark sees as in their interests, too. For that matter, the people of Greenland should also have a say, and their prime minister, Múte Egede, not only has no interest in being taken over by Donald Trump but actually is tired of being governed by Copenhagen. He wants independence for his people and full sovereignty for Greenland. To accomplish that, Greenland must first hold a referendum demonstrating that its people want independence, and that may happen this year. I don’t know if it will pass, however, because Greenland relies heavily on subsidies from Denmark and may not be able to do without them. But it’s up to them and up to Denmark. And it doesn’t appear that either are likely to go along with any proposal that Trump might offer.
So, that’s why we have to take the following very seriously:
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday repeatedly declined to rule out involving the U.S. military to carry out his ambitions for the U.S. to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“No,” Trump said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago Florida home and private club when asked whether he can rule out military or economic coercion in the two locations. “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this: We need them for economic security.
If Fetterman is correct that acquiring Greenland is something worth at least exploring, it’s still crazy to talk about using military force to accomplish it. In fact, it’s so bonkers that I don’t see the point in talking about any underlying merit to this discussion. As far as I’m concerned, Fetterman should find something else to talk about.
Of course, Trump is also talking about taking over the Panama Canal by force and I haven’t seen Fetterman defending any part of that lunacy. I suppose it will be up to incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prevent war with Panama, presumably by convincing them to make some unreasonable concessions cooked up in the fever swamp of Trump’s brain.
As for renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” this doesn’t actually trouble me that much. I don’t care if Arabs call the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf and I don’t care what we call the Gulf of Mexico. I’d just point out that Mexico is part of America, just like Canada, Honduras, Panama, Brazil and Argentina. There’s really no special ownership of the word ‘America’ for the USA.
I’d also add, as President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico pointed out on Wednesday, that the body of water was already listed on maps as the “Gulf of Mexico” 169 years before the United States of America existed. I think the name change is a dumb idea on Trump’s part, but it doesn’t much matter. The rest of the world will go on calling it the Gulf of Mexico no matter what is printed on U.S. government maps.
We elected an asshole (again) and so we are now assholes. Maybe in four years, we can make a different decision, if any of us humans are still living.
