In his zealous drive to enrich America, President Trump wants to buy Greenland, but inexplicably, the Danes are against the idea. The Danes don’t seem to know a good deal when it stares them in the face. Bummer. To quench the presidential appetite for real estate, I propose, for his kind consideration, the following alternatives:
Buy all of Afghanistan. Then no need to strike a deal with the wily Pakis for troop withdrawal. It will also crush Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth”. And checkmate China. And Russia. And the Taliban.
Buy Held Scotland or Occupied Wales. Steer clear of Londonistan.
Buy Pakistan-occupied Balochistan. Filled with elements like gold and copper. Numerous mines in the area. Going for cheap due to the low-brow neighborhood. Again we get to whip Iran and Pakistan in one shot.
Buy out little Israel. We get top technology, a great war machinery, and get to keep the slimy ME sheikhs on a tight leash.
Further suggestions are welcome. Note that the mighty superpower can also buy pieces of the ocean all around the world. I suppose America’s top real estate agent would know how to price water bodies. Question is, who do you pay?
Buy Catalonia, but only those administrative districts (ajuntaments or districtes) which voted for Catexit in the 1-O referendum. Since it is in the US’s best interests to ensure that there will not be Hispanic contamination, y’all handle the necessary arrangements regarding roads, walls, bridges, highways, gasoducts et al. It is the most Anglo-philic corner of Spain and possibly of Continental Europe, a very strong economy, and has very good Universities including several which already offer most of their coursework in English.
Nah, all those computer programmers are mostly in the Republic of Ireland and anyway they don’t count as Hispanohablantes (Spanish-speakers, the origin of the word Hispanic). They barely speak and when they do speak it tends to be in pseudocode.
Pick up another 99 year lease on Hong Kong, but this time with automatic renewal. It will take a nuclear war to force the issue, but why not? We weren’t doing anything with them anyway.
This might be the most doable suggestion yet, if Comrade Putin pulls a few strings with the separatists whom I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s backed, since it happens more often than not.
Oh they absolutely have. I have recognized in the current mess many of the messages that I used to see in the Basque-speaking areas during the 1970s and '80s. The cake went to a May 1st poster ranting against the “Spanish oligarchy”: uh, that’s the Catalans, Mr. Russian Who Just Took An Old Poster And Changed The Logos. They clearly have had the toolbox defined for quite a while, and keep trying this tool and that tool, keeping those that appear to work and putting the others back into the box; no attempt at trying to figure out beforehand which ones will work.
Oh, I know they don’t. But it would get me rid of my nastiest relatives “Sorry Mom, can’t go visit your sister as I don’t have the proper paperwork.”
Re. splitting Catalonia into a political collage based on independentist/unionist results on 1-O, a referendum which wasn’t even official and so many unionists simply refrained from voting: just trying to draw the map would be an enormous headache. I had a job in Cerdanyola at the time 1-O was announced: the University there leans heavily Catalanist and flats were cheap because “the students don’t want to live here, they’ve moved to other towns nearby where the people are Catalan,” the actual population of the town is seen as “not Catalan” by the xenophobic elements because their parents or grandparents were born someplace else (usually in Southern Spain). You’d end up with areas which are actually unionist but the 3 people who voted were separatist, you’d have areas where a temporary-ish population (such as students) would change the %s… calling it a bloody mess doesn’t do it honor.
I think this is the best option. All you have to do is to tell him that under the current treaties no country has give up their claims, that the US has reserved the right to make claims in the future and that tiny Norway has laid claim to about a sixth and Australia and New Zealand together almost half. Should get his blood pressure off, and leave plenty of room for meaningless interruption of the diplomatic status quo.
“Sorry Mom, can’t go visit your sister as I don’t have the proper paperwork.”