President Trump again threatened on Friday to forcibly annex Greenland, saying that he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
In a White House event discussing his plans to have American companies exploit Venezuela’s vast oil reserves under the threat of a military blockade, Mr. Trump advanced an imperialist vision of American foreign policy, where the U.S. must dominate strategically important neighboring countries because of the perceived possibility that rival powers might do so first.
“If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland,” Mr. Trump said, falsely suggesting that Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, was surrounded by Chinese and Russian warships. Russia and China are active in the Arctic Circle, but Greenland is not ringed by their ships, and the United States has a military base on Greenland.
Mr. Trump delivered an ominous warning to Danish and Greenlandic officials, who have consistently opposed the president’s plans to take the island: “I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way we’re going to do it the hard way.”
There once was a time when the Roman Republic was a functioning democracy. But something happened after the triumvirate (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus) when the senate deferred power to the so-called administrative branch. Suddenly consuls were trumped by the title emperor, and military “might made right”. Something similar is happening before our very eyes in the USA. Steven Miller (Trump’s policy advisor) said in an interview on Monday “we do not care about international law; we are the most powerful nation so will do whatever we please” (paraphrased). With the current congress unable or unwilling to veto the president, I fear we are watching 2000 year old history repeat itself.