Trump’s Demands the Annexation of Greenland on Behalf on US Tech Giants Keen to Exploit Its Minerals

A lot of people have been suggesting that the real reason the Orange Generalissimo wants to get his grubby hands on Greenland is because of its mineral wealth. The argument that he wants it for US national security simply don’t make sense. There’s a video on YouTube of an expert on a British TV interview knocking it down one point after another. First of all, there are already 18 US bases on Greenland. The US has never asked for more, even though the Greenlanders would be perfectly willing to let them. There also aren’t Chinese and Russian ships nosing around Greenland’s waters. There are, however, plenty of Chinese and Russian ships nosing around the American waters off Alaska.

I got this piece yesterday, reproduced from the American radical magazine Jacobin, from the Democrat newsletter Daily Dose of Democracy. It clearly demonstrates that behind Trump’s belligerent demands for Greenland to be handed over to America are the US big tech companies, who have their eyes very firmly set on the precious minerals locked beneath its icecap.

‘The tech billionaires behind Trump’s Greenland push
Lois Parshley, Jacobin: “President Donald Trump started his second term with his sights set on Greenland. When Trump first proposed buying the arctic nation during his first administration, it was treated like a joke. But in a phone call last week with Denmark’s prime minister, who controls the autonomous territory’s foreign policy, the president doubled down on his efforts to seize power. In the ‘aggressive and confrontational’ conversation, Trump threatened tariffs if he didn’t get his way. In a news conference earlier this month, he also refused to rule out the use of military force. Now Denmark is taking him seriously: on Monday, it announced a $2 billion military expansion in the Arctic. Though the island is not for sale, the president emphasizedGreenland’s importance to US national security. Left unspoken: a US takeover could weaken the country’s mining laws and ban on private property, aiding Trump donors’ plans to profit from the island’s mineral deposits and build a libertarian techno-city. The president’s renewed intention to take over Greenland has reignited debates over its sovereignty, as the country grapples with the trade-offs between economic opportunity and independence from Denmark. As the country’s glaciers recede, it’s also facing sweeping climate-driven transformations, threatening traditional industries like fishing and hunting and exposing valuable mineral resources. These shifts have prompted interest from powerful players associated with Trump. Tech moguls in the front row of his inauguration, like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, are also investors in a start-up aiming to mine western Greenland for materials crucial to the artificial intelligence boom. That company, KoBold Metals, uses artificial intelligence to locate and extract rare earth minerals. Their proprietary algorithm parses government-funded geological surveys and other data to locate significant deposits. The program pinpointed southwest Greenland’s rugged coastline, where the company now has a 51 percent stake in the Disko-Nuussuaq project, searching for minerals like copper. Just two weeks before some of its investors were glad-handing at the Capitol celebrations, KoBold Metals raised $537 million in its latest funding round, bringing its valuation to almost $3 billion. Among the contributors was a leading venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen, an early Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has helped shape the administration’s technology policies, including consulting with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency as a self-proclaimed ‘unpaid intern.’ In addition to KoBold, Andreessen has also backed other ventures eyeing the arctic nation: he is a significant investor in Praxis Nation, a project aiming to use Greenland to establish a “crypto state,” a self-governing, experimental community built around libertarian ideals and technology like cryptocurrency. The venture is also funded in part by Pronomos Capital, a venture capital group founded by the grandson of economist Milton Friedman and bankrolled by libertarian figures such as Peter Thiel, whose own family reportedly managed a uranium mine in Namibia. Pronomos aims to create private, business-friendly charter cities like Praxis, often in developing countries where investors could write their own laws and regulations. These ‘broligarchs’” now have the ear of the president. Thiel has been a significant supporter of Trump, throwing millions of dollars behind him throughout his political career and introducing him to current Vice President J. D. Vance.”‘

Open Britain Asks ‘Who’s Buying Reform’

This is a long piece explaining how Reform really aren’t a political party led by the grassroots representing the silent majority of ordinary Brits, but a private corporations led and run for its CEA, Farage, senior management and corporate donors. Who are actually a tiny group of three people.

‘Dear David,

Nigel Farage wants you to think he’s leading a grassroots rebellion. A party of ordinary people finally rising up against the establishment. But when you follow the money, the truth is a lot less romantic: in many ways, Farage is the establishment.

75% of all donations since 2019 have come from just three men: Christopher Harborne, Jeremy Hosking, and Richard Tice. Not three million ordinary contributors. Three millionaires.

It might be reasonable to bankroll a party because you like the cut of its jib. But when a party is reliant on a flood of cash from wealthy donors, the obvious question arises: whose interests does that party end up serving?

When you look at what these men are known for, and you look at what Reform UK’s leadership has been saying and promising, the overlaps are hard to miss.

Let’s start with Christopher Harborne. He’s a major cryptocurrency investor, with reported interests linked to Tether, the ‘stablecoin’ giant. He gave Reform UK a record £9 million,the largest political donation from a living donor in the history of British politics.

What strings came attached?

Byline Times reports that Nigel Farage has been talking up Tether, urging Britain to “embrace” it and to become a global trading centre of stablecoins – mocking calls for caution from the Bank of England as the work of “dinosaurs.”

That’s the leader of a political party – currently in pole position for Downing Street – publicly advocating for a product and a sector directly related to his biggest donor’s financial interests. It was also revealed in November that Tether was used to facilitate the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine and assist Russians in evading Western sanctions.

Then there’s Jeremy Hosking, who has donated £1.7 million to Reform UK. He’s a wealthy investment manager, whose company Hosking Partners has at least $134m invested in the fossil fuel sector. Unsurprisingly, he has strong negative opinions about net zero.

Reform UK says it will scrap net zero and related subsidies, fast-tracking licences for North Sea drilling and test sites. That would be a complete 180 shift from Britain’s policy direction, and it just so happens that donors like Hosking stand to benefit tremendously.

While you can’t prove a quid pro quo – that Hosking donated to secure that policy – it does at least mean that Reform UK’s climate programme is perfectly tailored to the interests of fossil-fuel investors rather than voters.

And then there’s Richard Tice, a property tycoon and Deputy Leader of Reform UK, worth a reported £40 million.

Property and planning may sound less dramatic than crypto or oil and gas, but it’s where many fortunes are made in Britain. Planning policy determines who gets to build, where they get to build, and what they can extract from the public realm in the process. It’s also at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis we face today (the longest such squeeze on record).

Reform UK has plotted a major overhaul of the planning system, including fast-track planning for brownfield sites and a “loose fit planning policy” with pre-approved guidelines.

That’s certainly developer-friendly language. Britain needs to build far more homes, faster, and there is little denying that the current system is broken. But the issue is that when the party’s internal power structure and donor base includes a major property figure, the “Is this in the public interest?” question becomes inseparable from “Who stands to profit?”

The greater picture is clear: three wealthy men, operating in sectors where Government has always picked winners and losers, lining up with a party that explicitly plans to change policy in order to make them the winners.

Reform UK stands as the most dramatic example of how this broken system actually operates. A system where a handful of mega-donors can effectively underwrite a political project, and where the rest of the country is then asked to treat that project as the authentic expression of popular will.

While none of this is necessarily illegal, it exposes a very real problem: how power really works and the urgent need to fix our democracy before it breaks entirely.

Legality is a low bar. Perhaps a better metric is whether it’s utterly eroding people’s basic faith in democracy itself. Is our system about the needs and aspirations of voters, or just who writes the biggest cheques?

If a party is only viable because of three very wealthy men, then those three men and their financial interests matter. And the policies that overlap with their profits deserve vastly more scrutiny than they’re currently getting.

Ignore the culture wars, the red herrings and the dead cats thrown out to distract and derail debate. Britain has a growing campaign finance problem. And until we fix it, we’ll keep getting politics shaped by the people who can afford to buy it.

All the best

Conor

Conor McKenzie
Digital Engagement Manager, Open Britain’

There you have it: What was cynically said about democracy applies to Reform: it’s the best political party money can buy.

38 Degrees Petition against Political Donations with Cryptocurrency

Here’s another new low in the descent of British politics into a mire of corruption where the rich buy influence with their favourite parties while throwing the rest of us under the proverbial bus. You probably won’t be surprised that this latest attack on democracy and political transparency comes courtesy of Nigel Farage and Reform. I’ve had absolutely no problem signing this, especially as trust in our elected representative has declined to the extent that some of the more excitable commenters and YouTubers on the right are talking about civil war. We definitely need not just PR, but also much stricter legislation on political donations mandating genuine transparency and open governmentl.

‘David, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK just crossed a dangerous line by becoming the first UK political party to accept cryptocurrency donations. [1] That means one thing: the door is now wide open for secret money to flood our elections and for shady individuals to buy influence.

This isn’t just about one political party. If this becomes the norm, we’ll have no clue who is buying our politics. Taking cryptocurrency is like politicians accepting suitcases of untraceable cash. Filtered through the right channels, that means no names. No real paper trail. And no limits.

That’s a dream scenario for shady billionaires like Elon Musk or countries like Russia trying to rig our democracy from the shadows. And worst of all, we wouldn’t know it’s happening. [2]

Right now, the Government is looking at new rules for political donations. That means we only have a short window to act. If enough of us speak up now, we can pile on the pressure and force the Government to stop this in its tracks – before it’s too late.

David, will you add your name to this urgent petition demanding a ban on secret crypto cash in politics? You can add your name with one click – it takes just 30 seconds to speak up against secret money in politics:

SIGN THE PETITION

I’m not signing because…

Stop shady crypto cash flooding our politics To: Rushanara Ali MP, Democracy Minister Ban the use of untraceable cryptocurrency from being used to bankroll UK political parties. I’LL SIGN

This isn’t Monopoly money. It’s trillions of pounds in real-world value. [3] And it’s mostly controlled by the world’s rich and powerful. [4] Imagine what they could do if they could spend it without any scrutiny.

When political money goes dark, it puts our democracy at risk. We all deserve to know who’s trying to influence our elections, and how.

But if we stay silent, we lose that right.

So David, will you join us in speaking out against secretive cryptocurrency in our politics, before it’s too late?
Click the button below to automatically add your name:

SIGN THE PETITION

I’m not signing because…

Thanks for being involved,

Mike, Flo, Tom and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] The Guardian: UK should consider banning cryptocurrency political donations, minister says
Reform UK: Reform UK now accepts donations in cryptocurrency
[2] The Guardian: Crypto donations could entirely corrupt British politics. Labour must act quickly
Byline Times: Bungs from Billionaires: Do Labour’s Political Funding Reforms Really Pass the ‘Musk Test’?
[3] Reuters: Crypto sector breaches $4 trillion in market value during pivotal week
[4] CNBC: Trump Media builds $2 billion bitcoin hoard, as cryptocurrency swells president’s net worth‘

Open Britain on Trump’s Appointment of Musk and Others Transforming America into an Oligarchy

‘Dear David,

As I watch Donald Trump lay out his cabinet picks from across the pond, one simple question comes to mind that I’m sure I’ll continue asking over the next four gruelling years: Who the f*** voted for Elon Musk? It was bad enough when he was just embarrassing himself with cringe-inducing star-jumps on Trump’s stage, or boosting his own trashy AI-generated memes on “X” (Speaking of which, Open Britain is now on Bluesky – give us a follow!).

But now, Elon Musk will help head up the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along with former Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The irony of the “efficiency” department having two co-leaders is not lost on any of us. Technically, it’s not an actual department, more of an advisory bureau. That means, surprise surprise, Musk will not have to go through the arduous Senate-approval process for his new position. DOGE’s role, aside from boosting the value of a dodgy cryptocurrency, is to advise Trump on dismantling the regulatory state. Will the richest billionaire in the world specifically target the regulations that limit his own profits? It’s hard to see how he wouldn’t. Musk has also been accompanying the President-elect in a series of meetings with world leaders. He’s so determined to be involved in government that Trump is seemingly already getting sick of him. There’s a word for this phenomenon: oligarchy. A billionaire president and his billionaire friend are laying out their plans to strip the country for parts. Musk has no electoral mandate to be involved in this process in any shape or form, and it’s no wonder he’s opted to dodge even the flimsy accountability processes the US has in place. Things are about to get dark Stateside, and quickly. Rep Matt Gaetz (convicted sex-trafficker) will run Trump’s law enforcement, Tulsi Gabbard (known purveyor of Putin propaganda) will be the nation’s intelligence chief, and a former Fox News host will run Defence. What could possibly go wrong? We know that Trump’s acolytes here in the UK, led by Nigel Farage, want to make the same thing happen here. Trump successfully sold his pack of lies in the United States, but Britain is not America. If we batten down the hatches and rebuild our broken democracy, we can avoid the same fate – but we need your support now more than ever to do it.

All the best,

Matt

Matt Gallagher

Comms Officer

Open Britain’

Back a decade or so, Harvard University published a report concluding that, thanks to corporate influence, most Americans felt that their opinions did not count politically, and that the country was not a true democracy but a quasi-oligarchy. That old American conservative, Thomas Sowell, apparently showed how his side feels about democracy. He’s put up a video accusing Kamala Harris and the Democrats of trying to transform America into a democracy.

Say whaaat? I thought America was already a democracy. I thought Americans believed, or at least used to believe, that theirs was the best democracy in the world. Or at least, Americans generally did have this positive view of their country’s fundamentally democratic nature before current concerns about institutional racism, White supremacy and corporate corruption, the latter turning the US into the best democracy money can buy, as the saying goes.

Are we heading back to the 18th and 19th centuries when the Founding Fathers were keen to introduce property qualifications for voting to prevent the poor getting above their station and stopping the country being run by worthy, wealthy men. Not to mention that at the same time a woman’s place was in the home, well away from the polling station and until the Civil War most Blacks were slaves with no rights.

I’ve also come across another video asking if Trump is the American caesar, the USA’s version of the emperors who emerged after the fall of the Roman Republic. Well, Nero competed as charioteer and as musician, playing the lyre and reciting poetry at the Greek cultural festivals. Trump hosted the Apprentice in America, so that you could say both have a background in entertainment. I’ll guess we’ll know for sure when the Orange Orangutan holds orgies in the White House and makes his horse a member of the Senate. As the Roman Emperors were also paranoid and murdered everyone around them, including and especially their own families, it might be wise for some of his relatives to start thinking about finding ways they could claim asylum abroad. Just in case.

As for that bit about the Department of Efficiency having two co-heads, it reminds me of one of the policies of the Monster Raving Loony Party, as was: ‘And we’ll be asking, ‘Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?’ Except with the Monster Raving Loony Party you knew it was all a joke. Trump is serious.

R.I.P. Screaming Lord Sutch. He’s so sorely missed. Jesters like him and the late Peter Cook would have had so much fun with the current bunch of clowns on both sides of the Atlantic.