Seriously, though, what's his thing for Greenland, anyway?
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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Mineral rights, on and off shore. There's a goldmine there when the melt starts seriously hitting.
Trump won't live that long, and let's be real, that isn't what he's thinking of. But owning Greenland would be a serious boon to the United States in the next 50-100 years. Watch us utterly rape Alaska once the ice recedes.
Gas and oil reserves. He thinks they need some "freedom".
Invading things seems to be a hangup for small dick energy guys - Taiwan, Ukraine, Gaza, killing the Kurds, and so forth. Maybe Greenland is just conveniently close and conveniently scarcely populated…?
Ronald Lauder (heir to Estee Lauder) is golfing buddies with Trump. He apparently suggested Trump buy it, possibly as a prank. Trump has been mildly obsessed ever since.
Whole thing might be a golf course prank that's gotten out of hand because one billionaire played a joke on another.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/us/politics/trump-greenland.html
Of all the explanations offered, I think this one, pathetic as it is, is the most likely correct answer.
I find it more likely because it's pathetic.
Prime real estate once the snow and ice is gone.
The ice itself is going to become more and more valuable as the U.S. depletes its groundwater and other places which rely on glacial melt for their water don't have it any more.
He probably thinks it's full of lush, green foliage. Probably wants the logging rights. Who knows with that guy.
Trump said nothing about buying it, just that US had to have it.
Greenland, the world's largest island, is an autonomous Danish territory with its own parliament, about 55,000 inhabitants, and a small pro-independence movement. It relies on Denmark to fund more than half of its public budget.
I think every community should have the autonomy to decide which team they want to join or none at all. But given this piece of information independence seems like a rather bad idea.
I mean, its population is small enough, that realistically, if we really decided we wanted it for geopolitical purposes, really wacky solutions do become possible. For example, you could cut a $2 million check to every man, woman, and child in Greenland, and the cost would be a $110 billion. That's nothing to the US federal budget, and it would be a solid long term investment. You give every resident of Greenland enough cash to just straight up move to and retire in the US if they want to. And the cost would be minor compared to trying to seize it by military force, if such a conflict spawned a war with the EU. Even if us seizing by force just resulted in the EU applying a bunch of trade sanctions, straight up buying out the entire population would likely be far cheaper than doing it by force.
I often do this too when I play Freeciv.
You mean that?
Mean what? It's simple math. Whether it's a good idea or not is a separate question. But the actual mechanics make it not as ridiculous as it sounds. Remember, Americans at the time thought buying Alaska was a mad folley as well.
As far as whether I think it's a good idea, for $110 billion? Yeah, that would be a fantastic long term investment for the US. There's the mineral and other resources on the island currently. And as the planet continues to earn, owning more northernly land is never a bad thing. I don't support some colonial invasion to take Greenland by force. But its population is so tiny that just writing everyone a big check is possible.
I actually see the "buy Greenland" as the most practical of the territorial expansion claims Trump has floated. You're not annexing big chunks of Canada or Mexico without committing some horrible crime. They're unlikely to want to join willingly, and not even even the US is wealthy enough to offer some massive life-changing bribe to millions of Canadian or Mexican citizens in exchange for voting for annexation. So any expansion into Canada or Mexico would be a hostile invasion, and I do not support such a thing. I'm perfectly fine expanding the US if it makes sense for us and if the people want to actually join the US.