President Donald Trump has taken a bad situation and made it worse. His recent text messages to the prime minister of Norway about the U.S. administration’s desire to acquire Greenland were extraordinarily uncouth, self-defeating, and, to speak plainly, almost deranged.
On Saturday, Trump exchanged text messages with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre about America’s hope to acquire Greenland. Gahr, speaking both for himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, texted back in an attempt to de-escalate what has become a crisis in relations between America and its European allies.
Trump has vowed to slap a 10% tariff on goods from eight European nations (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Finland) if they don’t support his desire to take ownership of Greenland from the Danes. The tariffs could increase to 25%, Trump said on Jan. 17.
Støre and Stubb clearly attempted to defuse the crisis in their joint messages.
“We all believe we should work to take this down and de-escalate — so much is happening around us where we need to stand together,” they said. “We are proposing a call with you later today — with both of us or separately — give us a hint of what you prefer.”
But their attempts at emollient diplomacy were met with wince-making Trumpian belligerence.
He responded, “Dear Jonas: Considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.”
Trump added that he “had done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States.” The world, Trump said, “is not secure unless we have Complete and Total control of Greenland.”
Trump is right to highlight Greenland’s strategic importance. He is also right to worry about Russia and China’s ambitions in the Arctic and beyond, ambitions that Europe has done nothing to deter. The United States has a clear interest in preventing Greenland from being exploited by its enemies. So too do its allies across the Atlantic.
Yet, Trump’s insistence on conflating his personal gripes with America’s national security is dangerous, not to mention that it’s also as unseemly as the temper tantrum of a petulant child. His decision to complain about being denied a Nobel Prize has no place in diplomatic negotiations. It is legitimate fodder for his many critics, who have seized on many false grounds for excoriation and have a real one, and it distracts and detracts from the necessary gravity of debate about Western defenses at the top of the world. Unsteady times demand a cool head and thoughtful tactics and strategy. This is not that. It is as far or further away from that as anything in living memory.
Trump’s misguided approach to Greenland has alienated nations that would otherwise be in America’s corner. Trump has rightly decried their tendency to contribute inadequately to their own defense. Why not strike a deal for Denmark to contribute massively to Western defense by granting the U.S. wide latitude to militarize its land in the Arctic? In the face of growing dangers from Moscow, Beijing, and elsewhere, Europe has often seemed adrift. Now, Trump seems adrift, and America is drifting with him.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S IMMIGRATION ENDGAME IS STILL AMNESTY
Instead of opening doors and working out a solution to the Greenland question, Trump’s rhetoric has aggrieved allies whose support the U.S. needs. It may have finally unified a disparate Europe, but it is in the wrong direction, away from America. That’s an outcome that Russia and China will be sure to exploit.
Trump’s latest text tirade betrays a mind unmoored from reality. The administration should correct course and work with allies, not against them.
