Donald Trump’s hand-picked envoy to Greenland just made clear that the administration’s obsession with the island isn’t really about national security or strategic positioning, it’s about oil, minerals, and raw resource extraction from a territory belonging to a longtime NATO ally.
Serving as Trump’s Special Envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry openly boasted on Fox News that the island “could be exporting two million barrels of oil a day right now” and that Trump is all excited to “help develop” its untapped resources.
In a stunning display of imperial thinking, he complained the sovereign nation and founding NATO member Denmark is standing in the way of a “deal” and suggested the U.S. should push harder to get access. He didn’t say it, but the implication is clear. Trump wants Greenland again, and his exploding megalomania of late shows he will likely try to just take it.
This is what Trump’s degradation of the world order – not to mention common sense – has come to: his eager henchman openly talking about prying resource-rich territory away from a NATO stalwart because they want cheaper oil and rare earth minerals for covetous reasons.
For eight decades, the United States has been the cornerstone of a rules-based international order built on respecting sovereign borders and alliances. Trump is now treating that system like his personal real estate portfolio, still salivating over piece of Danish territory the same way he once eyed golf courses and hotels.
Trump may tout “America First,” but this isn’t that at all. It’s old-school imperialism, pure and simple. Pressuring a NATO ally (watch these pages for reporting on the inevitably coming threats) for its resources doesn’t strengthen America at all.
Instead, it weakens the very alliances that have kept the peace and protected U.S. interests since World War II. Operating like this tells the world that American commitments aren’t worth the paper they’re written on if there’s a profit to be made or other opportunity to be had.
If Trump is willing to erode America’s most important alliances and international norms just to chase oil and minerals, what won’t he do?