Danish and Greenland’s PMs Tell Trump to Keep His Grubby Hands off

This is also from Daily Dose of Democracy

‘Danish prime minister issues fiery statement after Trump threatens to take Greenland
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wasted no time issuing a pointed warning to Donald Trump about his renewed threats to simply take Greenland, following the Trump regime’s operation in Venezuela over the weekend. “I have to say this very directly to the United States: It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland,” Frederiksen wrote in a statement on a Danish government website on Sunday. “The United States has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Commonwealth.” Speaking to reporters on Air Force One following the Venezuelan raid, Trump doubled down on his intent to continue his imperial conquests and took obnoxious pot shots at Denmark, barking, “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, that I can tell you. To boost up security in Greenland. They added one more dog sled.” Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen have repeatedly denounced the prospect of a US takeover of the island, and a January 2025 poll similarly found that 85% of Greenland’s residents opposed it.’

Despite the celebrations by ordinary Venezuelans of Trump’s removal of Maduro, the deputy-president is showing dangerous signs of insubordination and independence to the new Trumpist order. The Orange Generalissimo told the public that the deputy prime minister and the Venezuelan regime would do anything America tells them, adding that they don’t have a choice.

Er, not quite. The deputy President, Delcy Rodgriguez, has stated that Venezuela is not going to be anyone’s colony.

I wonder if any further adventures Trump launches in Latin America will lead to a revival in Arielismo. This was a Latin American anti-American ideology that emerged first in Argentina in the later 19th century. The cause was the Spanish-American War, in which America tried to liberate, or nick, Cuba from the Spanish. This resulted in a complete reversal of attitudes to America amongst Argentinian intellectuals. Previously they had strongly supported America. The war led them instead to reject this, viewing America instead as an oppressive imperialist power. The movement took its name from Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. They identified with Caliban, the bestial servant of the play, whom they saw as an indigenous person suffering imperial oppression, just as they felt they were under American hegemony.

Trump Goes Hitler Expansionist Demanding Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal

I’ve retreated from politics and blogging for the past few weeks as I’m going through a rough patch changing the treatment for the myeloma, a type of blood cancer I contracted seven years ago. But I’ve still been watching the news. And Mark P, one of the great commenters on this blog, reminded me in his New Year’s greeting to me how Trump and his court have gone really nutso, with Musk supporting Nazi thug, fraudster and grifter Tommy Robinson and Trump deciding that he wants to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama canal. The last was handed back to Panama in 1999, but Trumpelstiltskin has decided it’s American.

Here’s Mark’s post:

‘Happy New Year. What have you missed? Oh, only the Muskrat endorsing a violent hooligan and the far-right AFD, as well as libelling Starmer- and the Trumpanzee saying he would “take back the Panama Canal”.’

And here’s my reply:

‘Thanks, Mark – I hope you’re having a happy New Year too. I caught some of the nonsense with Musk and the Orange Buffoon. It really does amaze me how strong Tommy Robinson’s following is. There are people out on the far right calling for him to become an MP. I think they’ve even looked forward to him becoming PM. I don’t think there’s any hope of that, fortunately, as I don’t think you can become an MP if you’re a convicted criminal. And his nibs has a stream of convictions as long as your arm.

As for Trump and the Panama canal, it’s almost like watching Hitler demand the Sudetenland, Austria and Poland all over again. He’s gone off again about buying Greenland, ’cause it’s important to America’s economic security. I don’t see how that is, quite apart from issues like sovereignty. It belongs to Denmark, and half of its people or something like that are descended from 19th century Danish colonists and the other half are Inuit. As Canada’s Inuit have fought to have their own autonomous territory in the arctic, Qaaliut, or some such name, I can’t see Greenland’s indigenous people wanting to surrender their country to America.

As for the Panama Canal, America lost that a hundred or more years ago, and a lot of people died building it. The Mexican president has already pushed back against trump’s threat of invasion and economic warfare, showing that Latin America isn’t going to take any nonsense from him. If he sends troops into Panama it’ll probably set all Latin America off against him.

There’s a South American ideology called Arielismo dating from the late 19th century and the American attempts to seize Cuba in the Spanish-American war. It was thought up by Argentinian thinkers and based on a reading of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and the character of Caliban. In Aarielism, Caliban represents the Latin American victims of Yankee imperialism. If Trumpelstiltskin sends the troops in, we can expect a revival of the ideology.

He also, apparently, wants to unite Canada with America. As with Greenland and Panama, I think the Canadians might have a few ideas about that. They’ve got a single-payer healthcare system up there,, introduced by the Liberals in the 1970s and I doubt they’ll want to see that destroyed for the sake of American industry. And, oh yes, Canada’s a member of the Commonwealth, so our liege lord King Lugs will have a few views on it.

The American left-wing YouTube channel, Now This Impact, have put up a piece stating that all these landgrabs are just distractions designed to take Americans’ minds away from the fact that prices are rising and the economy is going down the tubes. Which seems plausible, though it doesn’t rule out Trump’s megalomania.’

I was wrong about Panama acquiring the canal a hundred years ago. They only got it in 1999, but still, it’s theirs and Trump has no just claim to it. Neither does he have a just claim to Greenland, though there is a minority of Greenlanders who support him, as well as an independence movement. Both the Danes and the Greenlanders have said that independence is solely a matter for Greenland’s people themselves. Trump wants it because it has plenty of mineral resources and its on an important trade route. Plus Russia and China are also expanding into the Arctic. The Danes have said they’re willing to cooperate with Trump in Greenland, and that it would be better he had it than Russia or China. But that doesn’t justify Trump threatening to send troops in.

He won’t use military force against Canada, however. Just economic. In addition to their healthcare system, there are profound political and cultural differences between Canada and America. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of union between the two nations.

Trump really has gone full megalomaniac with these demands, assuming that they’re serious. I wonder how long historic alliances with America can be maintained if allied nations feel that he is an out-of-control threat who will not honour them.