Humans first discovered Greenland over 4,000 years ago when they crossed the frozen strait at Thule from Canada. Donald Trump first discovered Greenland in 2017 during his first rule of the colonies. He was told of its existence by Ronald Lauder, an heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics company. Ever on the lookout for a good real estate deal, Trump began his fixation with owning or at least controlling Greenland.
He put his National Security Council to the task of acquiring it for him. John Bolton, his security advisor at the time, made overtures with the Danish government and came back to Trump with a plan for a “greater presence” in the land. Trump wanted to outright own the place and even suggested that we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland. Giving the Danes over 3 million US citizens in a trade for only 56,000 Greenlandic Inuits seemed like a good deal to Trump. Some brown people in exchange for some slightly lighter-skinned people. More like Let’s Make a Deal than The Art of the Deal (Steal).
The cover story is that the GIUK Gap (Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom) is strategically important to US security. That gap is an imaginary line from Greenland to the northern UK, aka Scotland, with Iceland in the middle. That area is seen as a chokepoint for ships entering the Atlantic from the Barents and Norwegian Seas.
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| GIUK Gap |
Given that Greenland is an autonomous territory of fellow NATO ally Denmark, the deal only now makes sense and becomes more significant because Trump wants to dissolve NATO. Such a move would delight fellow autocrat Vladimir Putin who has wanted to destroy his NATO nemesis for decades. It would be a win-win for the Trump-Putin alliance. If Trump really wanted to make his mark the deal would be that the US gets Greenland, then Russia gets Ukraine, and a world without NATO.
Behind the scenes, there's an Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Ken Howery, Peter Thiel, and Trump connection. Howery and Thiel are college buddies and part of the Pay-Pal Mafia with ties to Facebook and SpaceX. This group of oligarchs has expressed a common interest in acquiring Greenland. You can bet their interest is monetary and has little to do with US security beyond its value as a deflection. If the US gets invaded, Zuckerberg will cuddle up in his 5,000 sq ft survival shelter in Hawaii and Musk will launch himself into outer space to wait for things to blow over.
In a not unrelated matter, some people are quietly rooting for global warming and a melting of the arctic ice to open shipping lanes, oil fields, and rare earth mining opportunities. Show me the money and I’ll show you the motivation. Trump needs to be careful here as a melting of all the Greenland ice sheet would raise sea levels over 20 feet and Mar a Lago is currently only 3 feet above sea level. I don’t want to picture Donald Trump in a Speedo sloshing across the lobby of his palatial estate. Now that I said that, I can’t un-picture it.
[I decided to not create a Photoshop rendition of Trump in a Speedo sloshing across the lobby floor at Mar a Lago, you can thank me later]
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