After the failure of the three-way negotiations between the United States, Denmark and Greenland, the American president, Donald Trumpinsisted this Thursday on the need to annex the island. “They can’t do anything if Russia or China attacks, while we can do everything, as we showed in Venezuela.”
Trump ignores, once again, that Greenland, being dependent on Denmark, is part of NATO and that, therefore, it has the support of the best armies in the world and not just two sleighs pulled by reindeer, as the New York billionaire likes to ironically.
In fact, in recent days, and it does not seem like a coincidence, some Atlantic Alliance maneuvers have been organized on the island, which means that German, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish troops will accompany the Danish troops in exercises that aim to deter both the Chinese and Russians… as well as the Americans.
As always, Trump justifies his need to stay with Greenland by appealing to national security: the Chinese would be surrounding the island, while the Russians parade their nuclear submarines around the vicinity with impunity.
The Danish Foreign Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussenand its Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldtinsisted on the same Wednesday on the opposite: no Russian submarine has passed through the territorial waters of Greenland for more than ten years and the idea that Chinese warships are surrounding the island is directly absurd.
It is true that both nations have shown a special interest in controlling the Arctic in recent years, but without ever threatening the sovereignty of the island.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland, Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Vivian Motzfeldt, at the press conference they gave after their meeting at the White House.
Efe
New turn in Ukraine
However, Trump does not think the same. Trump fuels the Russian threat to justify his actions to his public. It must be remembered that support in the United States for a military annexation of Greenland does not reach 20%, according to the latest polls, and that Denmark does not stop insisting that the island is not for sale.
The curious thing is that he points out Russia as a great enemy and warns of his willingness to take Greenland… but he has no problem colluding with Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
In the umpteenth change of heart, Trump declared on Wednesday that the great obstacle to peace is Volodímir Zelenski. This varies depending on the month, but it seems that right now his harmony with Putin is absolute, to the point of insisting that the Kremlin “wants peace” when everything points to the opposite: Russia has intensified its attacks on civilian energy facilities in Ukraine and currently has 75% of the population of kyiv without electricity and without heating.
If we add to all this temperatures that range between ten and twenty degrees below zero, in what is being the coldest winter of the four wars we have had, the inhabitants of the capital have to protect themselves with blankets, coats and whatever they have on hand to avoid freezing.
It does not seem that this matters at all to Trump, in fact, he apparently considers it as a gesture of good will on the part of Russia, still unable to break the Ukrainian lines in Kupiansk and the Oskil River to get even minimally closer to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two Ukrainian military fortresses in the Donbas.
American abandonment has reached the point that the French president, Emmanuel Macrondeclared this Thursday that, although the intelligence that Ukraine received a year ago came overwhelmingly from the United States, currently two-thirds of it comes from France itself. Of course, the agreement to keep a good part of the rare earth minerals is still in place and Trump will know how to demand it when the time comes.
Iran and Venezuela, to their fate
Ukrainians are not the only ones left to their fate by Trump. The American president has surprisingly decided that repression has ended in Iran.
He is no longer bothered by the shootings of protesters, nor by the number of deaths—almost 3,000, according to HRANA, the NGO that denounces violations of human rights in the country—nor by the executions that continue to occur throughout Iran, despite the fact that the same NGO affirms that, so far this week, the regime has executed eight people.
Surprisingly, Trump stated in a post on his social network, Truth, that “there will be no more executions in Iran thanks to pressure from Donald Trump,” a headline that comes from the network Fox News. The president congratulated himself and it seems that things will remain there except for a new change of opinion, something that can never be ruled out.
In the war in Ukraine, with Putin, and in the revolts in Iran, with the ayatollahs, that seems to be American foreign policy.
It doesn’t end there, since, this Thursday, Trump finally met with Maria Corina Machadothe leader of the Venezuelan opposition. Trump had words of praise for the Nobel Peace Prize winner… but insisted that she did not have enough support and described her as “tremendously collaborative.” Delcy Rodriguezwith no signs that the successor of Nicolas Maduro within the Chavista order is going to be deposed in the short or medium term.
Maria Corina Machado, upon arrival at the White House.
Reuters
In short, Trump feels comfortable with autocrats and only discusses Democrats, whom he considers weak for the mere fact of being weak and depending on consensus and balance. Hence his fight against the European Union and NATO in general since his first term.
Hence, also, that in its national security plan it advocates supporting all far-right parties that can gradually take their countries out of the Union. That, supposedly, would save the West. It is still not known what.