@Renauda said in The Truman-Trump Connection:

Not necessary but politically desirable.

You mean stategically desirable.

Not at all. The desirable (and almost uncontested) strategic advantage is already held by the US and the Nato alliance. It has been so since at least 1949.

What I meant was the political desirability of de jure ownership of the eastern territorial gateway to the Northwest passage. Similar to the Turk owning and controlling the Dardanelle entrance to the Black Sea.

Not necessary but politically desirable.

You mean stategically desirable.

The article I linked tells that Greenland is looking for some form of independence/sovereignty from Denmark. They are not looking to becoming Americans. Trump continues to promote a policy that would result in Denmark giving consideration to sell the island to the USA. The wishes of the inhabitants of Greenland would be sidelined in any ensuing negotiations.

I get it that Washington would want Greenland. The US already maintains total political and military control over the Alaskan Western Arctic entrance/exit to the Northwest Passage. It also militarily controls the Eastern entrance of the passage through USN command of the sea. It currently must share political control over eastern NW passage with its NATO allies Denmark and Canada. It would like to have complete control. Obtaining Greenland would be a strategic step towards that reaching that goal. Not necessary but politically desirable.

The talk is independence not union with or purchase/annexation by the USA.

I didn't say that did I? Have they made such a request in the past?

The talk is independence not union with or purchase/annexation by the USA.

https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-would-greenlands-independence-mean-arctic

Alaska was Seward’s Folly.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/donald-trump-not-the-first-president-to-try-to-buy-greenland/ar-AA1wo2c5

The first time the U.S. thought about buying Greenland was in 1867 when Secretary of State William Seward, under President Andrew Johnson, proposed buying it and Iceland from Denmark for $5.5 million in gold, or about $117.2 million in today’s money. The offer was never made to Denmark however. That same year, Seward negotiated the Alaska Purchase from Russia for $7.2 million ($129 million today).

But does the country have a reason to do this? Besides to stroke Trump’s ego?

But the American Moses wants their walrus blubber and muktuk.

OTOH, the biggest money maker is seafood.

BTW, we've bought stuff from the Danes before. The Virgin Islands.

Just as Greenland doesn't have much in the way of greenery.....

Danes are, for the most part, consistently polite and statesmanlike,

Also the most humorless.

quite unlike brash NY real estate tycoons

Of all the Danes I've known, "brash" hardly applies, LOL.

Expanding on his remarks, Trump later added, “I look forward to going, but I thought that the Prime Minister’s statement that it was absurd that wasn’t — it was an absurd idea, was nasty. I thought it was an inappropriate statement. All she had to do is say, ‘no, we wouldn’t be interested.’ But we can’t treat the United States of America the way they treated us under President Obama. I thought it was a very not nice way of saying something.”

The Danish PM was just being “occasionally impolite”. Danes are, for the most part, consistently polite and statesmanlike, quite unlike brash NY real estate tycoons. No wonder that Trump didn’t understand that and took offense.

This thread could easily be titled, ‘Now that all of America’s problems have been solved, Trump turns his attention to…’

Trump is trolling about Canada. I do think he's semi-serious about Greenland.

BTW, we've bought stuff from the Danes before. The Virgin Islands.

I don’t know enough about it to say definitively, but it could be very forward thinking. What minerals have been proven to be there, and are they reasonably accessible?

Copper, gold, coal, zinc, lead, gemstones and rare earth minerals.

The Air Force has a base there.