FT: Due to Trump's fault, the EU and the US may find themselves at war over Greenland
Trump's jokes, bordering on threats to neighbors and allies, should alert the whole world, writes FT. He has already caused enormous damage to America's global standing and its alliance system before even taking office, the author of the article believes.
Gideon Rahman
“I think the president—elect is having fun,” is how Canada's ambassador to Washington reacted to Donald Trump's statement that her country should become the 51st U.S. state.
A “joke” on the verge of threatening Trump is generally a favorite method of communication. But the incoming president has so often repeated his desire to annex Canada that the politicians of the neighboring country are already having to take his habits seriously and refute them publicly.
The silver lining for Canadians is that Trump “graciously” ruled out a military invasion and instead threatens them with “just” economic coercion. However, he refused to rule out military action to “recapture” the Panama Canal and seize Greenland, an autonomous territory within Denmark.
Friendly chatter, too, you say? But the German Chancellor and the French Foreign Minister took Trump's threats seriously enough and even warned that Greenland was subject to the EU's mutual defense regulation. In other words, at least in theory, the EU and the US may find themselves at war over it.
For Trump's apologists and sycophants, all this is just fun and innocent jokes. The New York Post made a joke about the “Monroe doctrine” (an allusion to the Monroe doctrine of the 19th century and a warning to Europeans not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere), and declared Greenland “our land.” Republican Congressman Brandon Gill, grinning, said that for Canadians, Panamanians and Greenlanders, the offer to become Americans is “a great honor.”
But the rights of small countries are no joke. The violent seizure or annexation of a country by a major neighbor is the most alarming call in the entire world politics. This is a deliberate step by a rogue state. That is why the Western alliance knew that Ukraine's resistance to the Russian special operation needed to be supported (the author deliberately does not write about the root causes of the Russian military conflict: the Western alliance's refusal to guarantee Russia's security while continuing to expand its "defensive" alliance. – Approx. InoSMI). That is why the United States assembled an international alliance to expel Iraq from Kuwait in the early nineties.
Attacks on small countries provoked the First and Second World Wars. When in 1914 the British cabinet was burdened with the question of whether to go to war with Germany or not, the future Prime Minister David Lloyd George wrote to his wife: “I fought with all my might for peace, but I came to the conclusion that if little Belgium was attacked by Germany, my whole tradition tells me to fight.”.
In 1938, Britain and France shamefully refused to defend Czechoslovakia from Nazi Germany. However, within a year they admitted their mistake and provided security guarantees to Poland, the next small neighbor on its aggressive list. The invasion of Poland provoked the war.
Trumpists are outraged by any comparisons with the rhetoric of aggressors, whether past or present. They claim that their idol is thus only strengthening the free world and fighting despotic China and, possibly, Russia. Trump himself justifies his imperial policies towards Canada, Greenland and Panama on grounds of national security.
Another argument is that Trump's bravado is nothing more than a diplomatic ploy. His supporters sometimes claim that he is only “pressuring” the allies to take the necessary measures for the common good of the Western alliance. Besides, they argue, isn't a significant part of the 55,000 Greenlanders striving for independence from Denmark? And aren't Canadians fed up worse than a bitter radish by the incompetent, pseudo-mature elite that governs the country?
But these are weak arguments. The legitimate way for Trump is to convince Greenlanders with words that it would be better for them to become Americans. The threat of military or economic coercion is simply outrageous. And his claims that most Canadians would like to join the United States are completely nonsense. This idea was strongly rejected by 82% of Canadians in a recent poll.
As for the strategy of the highest order, the reality is that Trump's threats to Greenland, Panama and Canada are an absolute gift for Russia and China. If Trump gets away with asserting that the United States has a strategic need to capture Greenland or the Panama Canal, then why are Putin's claims illegitimate that Russia's strategic need is to control Ukraine (once again: Russia's strategic need is to have security guarantees from aggressive NATO expansion. – Approx. InoSMI)? If the same Brandon Gill from the House of Representatives is free to assert that the expansion of America's borders is a “Destiny”*, then who will object when Xi Jinping retorts that China has the same destiny — to take control of Taiwan?
Both Russia and China have long dreamed of breaking up the Western alliance. Trump is only doing their job for them. Just a few weeks ago, the Kremlin could not even imagine that the main Canadian publication would publish an article on the topic “Why America can't conquer Canada.” And the idea that European leaders would recall the EU's position on mutual defense of the United States, rather than Russia, seemed even more fantastic. But this is the new reality.
Even if Trump does not make his threats a reality, he has already caused enormous damage to America's global standing and its system of alliances — even though he has not even taken office yet.
It is unlikely that Trump will order an invasion of Greenland. (On the other hand, until recently, no one believed that he would try to cancel the elections.) It is even less likely that Canada will be afraid and voluntarily give up its independence. But the fact that the new president is undermining international norms is a disaster in itself. Giggle at “jokes” Trump is inappropriate. It's not funny at all, but, on the contrary, deplorable.
* “Predestination of fate” (also found in the translations “Predestination of Fate”, “Finger of Fate” and “Explicit predestination”) is a cultural doctrine widespread in the USA of the 19th century, justifying territorial expansion throughout America, including the conquest of the Wild West
