President Deals is up to it again! Over the past week, word got out that the White House has been exploring some kind of arrangement to buy the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland ” which in addition to giving the U.S. more military access to a strategic point of the globe, would enable American exploitation of its vast mineral wealth, freshwater reserves, and… sand.
Precious sand.
Anyhow, while one could be excused for wondering whether this was a serious policy initiative or the ravings of a mind in the advanced stages of some kind of decline and indulged only reluctantly by a cabal of yes-men, the difference is academic now. Denmark just isn’t interested, as the president made clear in tweets on Tuesday evening.
“Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” Trump (or some staffer paraphrasing a fit of rage) wrote on Twitter.
….The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
In a followup tweet apparently calculated to make it seem as though he was the victor here, Trump wrote, “The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!”
As the New York Times noted, Trump had as recently as this weekend insisted that his upcoming visit to Copenhagen scheduled for September 2-3 was not on the topic of buying Greenland.
The U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Carla Sands, was also apparently under the impression the visit was still occurring as of 5:22 p.m. ET on Tuesday (7:22am Wednesday AEST), when she tweeted that “Denmark is ready” for the president’s visit.
In any case, best of luck to Danish autonomous territory Greenland, which has numerous problems of its own to sort out due to climate change ” including ice melt growing anxiety that life on the island has already been irrevocably altered. At least now, you don’t have Trump to worry about.