Trump, Greenland and the Nobel Prize
President Trump responded on Sunday to a text from Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store asking for a phone call to “de-escalate” on Greenland and other issues:
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely 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. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”
Mary Trump — the president’s niece who helped the world understand his behavior in her book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” — posted on X, “This is too stupid even for him.”
Since then, Trump has posted doctored images, one showing him planting the U.S. flag next to a sign reading “Greenland, U.S. Territory, Est. 2026.” The other shows Trump in the Oval Office next to a map of Greenland and Canada covered with the U.S. Stars and Stripes, according to The Associated Press.
Among the reactions from Democrats, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., says the president’s text is “unhinged and embarrassing, but also incredibly dangerous.”
The Washington Post — whose newsroom continues to do quality work despite owner Jeff Bezos’ interference on the opinion pages — says Trump’s push to take over Greenland “has sparked the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations.”
Leaders from across Europe are expected to gather in Brussels this week to present a united response to Trump’s provocations, says a New York Times analysis. Veteran observers of European politics say the alliance between Europe and the United States that formed in the aftermath of World War II already has been fundamentally altered.
It’s no longer an alliance designed primarily to advance the interests of like-minded democracies, they say. Instead, it’s a relationship on Trump’s terms alone — “one in which he wields the leverage that comes from American power to force Europeans to cater to his whims,” as the Times puts it.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown writes in The Guardian: “If Greenland marks the end of the world looking to the U.S. for leadership, it has also become the moment for Europe and the democracies of the global south to lift their heads out of the sand. They, and other democracies, should now set out a new statement of values and rules that show how we will champion peace, stability and justice, and deliver meaningful progress in areas where international cooperation is essential.”
Anne Applebaum, who writes about authoritarianism for The Atlantic, says Trump is “locked into a world of his own, determined to ‘win’ every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis. These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy. And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being.
“The people around Trump could find ways to stop him, as some did in his first term, but they seem too corrupt or too power-hungry to try. That leaves Republicans in Congress as the last barrier. They owe it to the American people, and to the world, to stop Trump from acting out his fantasy in Greenland and doing permanent damage to American interests,” she says.
Tom Nichols, another Atlantic writer, who taught for 25 years at the U.S. Naval War College, says: “During my years as a military educator, I saw American officers wrestle with any number of scenarios designed to challenge their thinking and force them to adapt to surprises. One case we never considered, however, was how to betray and attack our own allies.”
He says: “It is not up to the armed forces to put a stop to Trump’s ghastly ideas. Every molecule in the body of almost every uniformed American service member is likely to reject doing something they have spent a lifetime training never to do, but the United States is not run by the military, nor should it be. Americans, and their elected representatives, must take this burden away from the armed forces — now.”
The Capitol switchboard, to be connected to the offices of senators and representatives, is (202) 224-3121.
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