America is a mafia state.

No point beating about the bush.

The graphic posted on X on 3 January 2025 by Katie Miller, wife of the Don’s consigliere, Stephen Miller, makes it clear Trump wants Greenland sooner rather than later.

Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet the Danes/Greenlanders on Wednesday (14 January) to make them an offer they can’t refuse. 

But what if they say no? 

How will Rubio react?

Tyranny

It is as plain as a pikestaff they don’t want to sell. The Greenlanders are content with their centuries long association with Denmark. They probably like their free healthcare from cradle to grave and don’t want to swap it for the American alternative. And they don’t want to be absorbed by a state morphing into tyranny before our very eyes.

If they call Trump’s bluff he will be upset but he has a short attention span and will be distracted by any number of other issues on his plate. The ballroom perhaps.

Over the years the United States has gobbled up millions of acres of land once in the ownership of others. There was the Louisiana purchase from France in 1803; Florida from Spain in 1819; the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico in 1853; Alaska from Russia in 1867 and the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands) in 1917. And, of course, there was a bid to buy Greenland in 1946 but that went nowhere.

But the Danes and the Greenlanders are resolute. They don’t want to sell whatever the inducements.

Trump told the New York Times that ownership of Greenland was

“psychologically important for me”.

He says the increased presence of Chinese and Russian ships near Greenland prompted him to act. The Danish political daily Politiken says there is absolutely no evidence of this.

EU Membership

I am rather taken by the suggestion from the former Vice Chancellor of Germany, Robert Habeck, that the European Union should offer EU membership to Greenland. I am not entirely sure how that would work in practice but it would certainly send all the right signals to the White House.

I have been wondering what people of Danish origin here in Newmarket feel about this. Unfortunately I don’t know where they are so I can’t have a coffee with them.

Totalitarian

Ideally, they would organise a demonstration outside, say, the Old Town Hall which featured a few years back as a Gilead fertility clinic in the Handmaid’s Tale. That would be a suitable totalitarian backdrop.  I’d join them.

The last census in 2021 tells me the Town had 380 people of Danish ethnic or cultural origin. 75 had a knowledge of Danish and 40 had Danish as their mother tongue. 

In my head I can hear them say:

Grønland er ikke til salg

Greenland is not for sale.

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Update on 14 January 2025 from Politiken: Greenland chooses Denmark, the EU and NATO