Now I’m sorry I asked.
To be fair, it is the second-biggest island in the world, after Australia.
I always found that the definition of what constitutes an island and what counts as a continent is arbitrary. Why not claim that Africa (or America) is an Island, bigger than Australia? Or that Australia is a continent, thus Greenland is the biggest island?
Anyway, Greenland is almost exactly as big as Mexico, so it is going to pay for the bridge that will connect it to Manhattan. Or was it a metro connection?
My theory is that he was rejected by a Danish lady at some time and this would be his way of getting back at her, stealing land from her country. The US already has a base there, what more would annexing the island do for national security than the current base does now? If he was serious about the matter, he’d send someone more qualified than his half-witted son with his meager half-vast experience to talk to the Danes.
Australia is a continent, and Greenland is the biggest island. I was making a joke to tweak the Aussies.
There is a somewhat non-arbitrary distinction between continents and islands based on geology and plate tectonics, but don’t ask me to elucidate it.
Ah, stupid me. OK, enough of this hijack. Happy Birthday!
The irony is that, were I the president of Panama, I’d already be in the process of inviting China to build a military base there, staffed with Chinese marines and with a detachment of the Chinese navy. If anyone is able and willing to defend another country against renewed American imperialism, it would be China.
The Chinese obtained and then abandoned a bid to dig a new canal through Nicaragua, and are now engaged with Mexico to developing a waterway/rail link across the narrow part of south Mexico.
But then they would have to go through the Gulf of America.
I knew it was not tanTrump’s idea:
I’m not sure about irony. Mar-a-Lago did good business with the Chinese during the first Trump administration.
Trump cares about personal profit and big headlines, not China or opposing China.
I have a friend who refers to him as “Il Douche.”
I’d like to ask @Mikkel – if interested – whether this Trump/Greenland stuff seems to have filtered into the daily news cycle (or discussion among those you know) in Denmark, and – if so – what people seem to be generally saying.
And – yeah. I would have, similarly, asked @Colibri the same thing vis-a-vis Panama 
I wonder what ally intel agencies like MI6 are making of the US right now?
Can they afford to just handwave these kinds of statements, or should they start strategizing around a belligerant, imperialist US? And how do you share intel with someone you think is a loose cannon on a bonfire?
AND the stalwart fellows supporting the coat of arms now have significantly bigger cudgels.
This. Only the US probably shares more information with its allies than the other way around. That only makes it worse.
The US intelligence apparatus is good with electronic intelligence (ELINT) and communications intelligence (COMINT) but not great at human intelligence (HUMINT), which is actually where a lot of valuable on the ground insights come from. Losing access to shared HUMINT data would be a real blow to critical information. Not that Trump cares about any of that; I’m sure he believes that he already has all of the ‘intelligence’ he needs.
Stranger
Trump’s Greenland plans and junior’s visit has been front-page news the last days. The Greenlanders I know are worried.
It is so absurd, to use our minister of state’s words from last time.
This time Mette Frederiksen has only said that the decision start and end in Nuuk. No one else can decide Greenlands future.
Trump receives support from newly elected Representative Brandon Gill (R-Texas-26).
On CNN:
Quite. But I’m willing to bet that not only are there piles of contingency plans already, but also we won’t hear about it - just yet.
What I don’t get is that, if anyone’s worried about an independent Greenland sucking up to China, why not look for agreements all round that they would do nothing to imperil US national security, rather than setting out on the course of action guaranteed to get your negotiation partners’ backs up? Seems entirely counter-productive.