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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30844 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Trump announces plan to hit UK, Denmark and other European countries with extra tariffs over Greenland

Several EU countries sent tripwire forces into Greenland a few days ago. Now Trump has announced 10% tariffs on imported goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland. As a sidenote, despite predictions of economic catastrophe, Trump's tariffs have been smaller and done less economic damage than estimated.

For starters, inflation is running below projections. In December, the just-announced inflation rate was 2.7 percent. The Fed’s favorite indicator was unchanged from November when the core inflation rate, at 2.6 percent, was the lowest since 2021.

Tariffs have had surprisingly little impact on higher consumer prices. “Tariff pass‑through to consumers has been much milder than anticipated,” Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, wrote in a recent research note. Yet revenue from tariffs brought in close to $300 billion in 2025, up from about $80 billion in 2024, and is currently on track to produce over $350 billion this year.

The evidence suggests that most costs are being absorbed by foreign exporters or by domestic sellers accepting lower profit margins. And since the actual tariffs on different countries are a crazy quilt of different rates, producers have also become expert at shifting their supply chains to countries with relatively lower tariffs. In addition, it’s easy to overstate the impact of tariffs on household costs, since imports are only about 14 percent of GDP. In other words, there are no tariffs on 86 percent of GDP.

The high tariff rate on China skews the averages. Excluding China, the effective tariff rate on the rest of the world, adjusting for trade share and exempt categories, is not the average 17 percent. It’s well below 10 percent. Thanks in part to the tariffs, the chronic U.S. global trade deficit has been shrinking. The October deficit was $29.4 billion, down nearly 40 percent from September. The decline continued in November, the last month for which statistics are available.

Still, no one knows what's the next step of Trump's master plan. Will it fizzle like the whole "Canada 51st state" thing? Polymarket estimates 27% chance that Trump will take "part of Greenland" in 2026.

While this might be a ruse (you never know with Trump), I think it is excellent news for fans of the international rule-based order. It certainly looks like the orange man-child is throwing a tantrum because it turns out that he can't get the thing he really, really, wants to get.

As a (non-SJ) left-liberal, I do not often feel pride in my nation. Merz, that slimy manifestation of upper class interests and inept populism, is certainly not my chancellor. When Putin attacked Ukraine, what I felt towards my country of birth was mostly relief -- at least this time it was not us bringing large-scale war to Europe, like usually.

Today is the first time I might feel something akin to national pride. Mild pride, mind you, making it clear that we would honor article 5 is a decent thing, not a heroic thing after all.

As @BurdensomeCount has observed, Germany has long been a good little bitch to the US. Abduct our citizens to your extralegal torture prisons, and our spineless politicians will just keep smiling. Tap the phone of our chancellor, and she will voice mild disappointment. When Trump tried to sodomize us with his tariffs, a kink of his which was not expressed by our previous masters and which we definitely do not share, we negotiated for a bit of lubrication but otherwise let him do as he pleased. I suppose Trump was surprised that we have any limits when he announced his intent to fuck Denmark in the eye socket and we actually stood up to him for once.

I don't think that loyalist NATO has the military force to stop the US from taking Greenland. Nor would I want WW3 started over it. However, even if we would lose, I would want soldiers on both sides to die over it, perhaps on the order of 10k. No reason to let the bully get what he wants without making him pay some price in the process, plus visibly cementing our relationship change.

Giving that Trump just broke the US-EU tariff deal, some poor EU diplomats are probably having to start talking with MAGA all over again. Personally, I do not feel it is worth it. Just declare reciprocal tariffs of whatever Trump imposes this week and call it a day. Dealing with the Chaotic Evil Tantrumthrower is just too much of a bother, and we would be better off trading with the Neutral Evil that is China. We should probably try to sell them some ASML EUV machines while they still need them, it is not like they are threatening the peace of the EU.

I have to admit, I did not have "USA versus EU over Greenland" on my bingo card (if I had bingo cards in the first place). Reality sure is a very interesting place these days!

Reality sure is a very interesting place these days!

Yes, reality is unrealistic.

AGENT: Tone it down. Really, tone it all down. You are writing near future gritty cyberpunk story, not slapstick comedy!

The mega billionaire character is so over the top it is not even funny, starting with this goofy name ... ELON? And the president, Dump or what is his name... this is not even parody, this is pure hallucinatory nonsense.

I sort of believe that after all the mockery and criticism of his first term, Trump is now "to hell with it, I'm done trying to play nice, I'll do what the hell I want in my second term, what are they gonna do, vote for Kamala and Tampon Tim?"

It's genuinely bananas. I couldn't believe Venezuela, especially as most of the complaining about it seems to be the usual white liberals and actual Venezuelans are going online to go "Thank you President Trump for getting my father out of jail!" Maria Machado handing over her Nobel peace prize is just the twist nobody saw coming (is that jumping the shark yet? writers for the new season, take note!) though I am forced to admit the seething around that is immensely entertaining.

Are we not entertained, indeed!

I would want soldiers on both sides to die over it, perhaps on the order of 10k

Are you willing to be one of the glorious ten thousand?

No. Hypothetically, I would be willing to pay my fair share of perhaps 100 micromorts as one of the male citizens of a loyalist NATO country. Realistically, I am aware that deaths on both sides would be professional soldiers, as neither side is going to hide among the civilian population of Greenland.

FWIW, I do not generally support feeding the Bundeswehr to the meat grinder of war. I did not vote for a party which would have sent them to Iraq, and might not even have sent them to Afghanistan. I most certainly would not send them to Ukraine.

But part of the core purpose of a defensive army is the implicit promise that they will inflict costs on an aggressor. This goes back all the way to the first system of warfare. A city which always surrenders on the first day of a siege by a force which could eventually starve it out might ask itself why it even maintains a wall in the first place, and can expect to do a lot of surrendering.

At the end of the day, it comes down to decision theory. Causal Decision Theory would reject an action which only inflicts losses on yourself and your conqueror but does not change the outcome you care about. More enlightened branches of DT recognize that this is not game theoretically optimal. Even CDT would recognize the value of precommitting to fighting back before an invasion as a means of deterring it.

If Trump is reasonable confident that he could take Greenland without bloodshed because Europe will retreat once he makes it clear that the alternative is killing, then that makes invading Greenland a no-brainer.

There certainly is a coherent radical pacifist position where you do not have an army and always yield when attacked. But if you have an army (which I support having, thanks to Putin), and are unwilling to commit it to defend your own or allied territory, then you need to ask yourself what the army is actually buying you, and if it would not be cheaper to equip them with guns and tanks made of papier-mâché.

Sure, why not? You think all the Ukrainians and Russians currently dying were coerced? People have to start realizing that war can easily break out, people will die for their country, and that will be that. No matter how dumb the Glorious Leader's reasons are, how peaceful people appear to be, how deep the cultural and ethnic ties.

Uphold article five? With whom? With what? Didn't a poll just show that two thirds of Germans would "probably not" fight for Germany? What fraction of the remainder would fight for Greenland?

"This will be easy special operation, three days at most. They are cowards, they will not dare to resist our might."

Such words were said many times in history. Sometimes they were right, sometimes they were not. Now, if it turns not to be the case, what is your plan B? How many casualties will US accept to secure the sacred snow and ice of Greenland?

You confuse what you would like European leadership to do with what they want to do, and conclude that they can't do it.

The fact that Putin "can't" deal with Ramzan Kadyrov setting up a Muslim mini-theocracy within Russia's borders, or raise TFR, or any other number of things hasn't stoppsed him from sending hundreds of thousands to war. This is not a wargame, and failing to uphold one of the "basics of finctioning nation-states" does not magically deactivate all the other options a state has.

If you see a practical way of Europe challenging the US, by all means outline it. Putin pays his soldiers, is Europe supposed to do the same while maintaining it's welfare state, or do you think we're likely to ditch it? Where is their ammo coming from? We literally ran out of bombs when ousting Gaddafi. Do you think we'll be as good as the Americans at logistics, and we'll be able to project our power all the way to Greenland well enough to give the Americans a run for their money?

The only way for Europe to truly challenge America right now is to drop Ukraine, make big overtures toward Russia, get closer to China (nuclear option would be lifting ASML export restrictions to the PRC, since no US company can compete with them). Then Trump is in an unenviable position. He can wield the might of the US financial system to try to destroy the European and Chinese economies but that’s an extremely high variance play that would unite the US’ main geopolitical competitors in a way that could destroy dollar hegemony.

If he wants Greenland, instead of the current fumbling, he can just threaten Novo exports until the Danes agree to a referendum, then bribe the natives. Alas, that would require a somewhat more intentional foreign policy.

ASML play is complicated. It depends on American IP and suppliers, like Cymer for light source. Nevertheless, just a month ago Macron did hint at something very close to that, and the Chinese are working on the entire stack, so…

Toujours dans un souci d'apaisement, le président propose « le démantèlement mutuel de nos politiques agressives, telles que les restrictions à l'exportation de machines pour semi-conducteurs du côté européen et des limitations à l'export des terres rares en ce qui concerne la partie chinoise ».

I hope Trump chases Europeans into a corner where they start considering live player options, options their Atlanticist handlers won't greenlight.

Was Venezuela not exactly this fast operation? Were their troops not cowards who would lift a single MANPAD to resist our might?

We (for value of "we"=military history nerds) will know in decades, if ever, what exactly happened this fateful night, what, if any, subterfuges and backstage deals were involved.

But, according to reports that came through, Venezuelans and Cubans stood against science fictional death ray and died, something as far from cowardice as there could be.

Anyway, lessons from Venezuela for potential confrontation between US and European countries are limited (unless you believe them to be equally rotting and decrepit shitholes).

hordes of Islamists

As relevant to potential US-EU war scenario as American mass shootings and constant gang violence, this is not at all. For example, India and Pakistan are both full of internal unrest, and it does not stop them from warring with each other in the utmost seriousness.

but you will fight and die

This is decision for European leaders and their armed forces. Will the leader give orders to resist the invasion? Will the soldiers obey? Will they do so effectively enough to cause significant US casualties?

Look, I don't know or even care really why Trump wants Greenland.

Do not ask any questions, just trust the Great Leader. Nothing can be more American in spirit.

As much as I would like to see deportations, there is no counterpart in Europe to the abandonment of inner cities to that America saw, you can still have a nice time walking through Marseille or Brussels even if they are disasters by European standards.

I don't think America has failed the most basic functions of a nation state, but if you want to say that achieving the murder rate of the state of Iowa - no European counterpart of Detroit or Baltimore even exists - is a sign of such failure then it appears that you are saying it.

I don't think America has failed the most basic functions of a nation state

Country can be extremely internally violent and still be able to maintain state of the art air, space and nuclear forces and face other great power in open warfare.

Today is the first time I might feel something akin to national pride.

As a Trump voter who farts in Europe's general direction, I just want to say, I'm fine with this. I'm fine with you guys acting like real countries again, if you decide to try. Because Europe you are just a god damn mess. Everyone loves talking about the decline of the American Empire but Europe holy shit what have you even been doing for the last thirty-five years?

You've regulated your tech industry into non-existence and become a relative backwater, watching your share of global GDP decline by like half. You imported a million zillion Third Worlders who were supposed to prop up your pension systems but mostly just pump up the rape stats. No one will ever let you dismantle the welfare state and something has to give, so you've let your militaries go totally and completely to shit thinking history was over anyway. Now you just sit around begging us for help because a fat old hasbeen like Russia is being mean again, with its GPD like a tenth the size of yours. It's embarrassing.

You never take pride in yourselves? It fuckin' shows. Stand up, if you still can.

Completely agree.

I was born in Poland and came over to the US as a political refugee in like ‘89 as a weeee lad.

It seems to me that Poland and other various Eastern states will be the staging ground of once again saving Europe from the horde.

Not excited - no kumbaya - just a blood massacre … again.

Where are the Winged Hussars when you need them?

You imported a million zillion Third Worlders who were supposed to prop up your pension systems but mostly just pump up the rape stats.

To be fair, progressives in the US would love to do that as well (well, not the rape part). The main difference is that the USA is much further away from MENAP than Europe is.

well, not the rape part

No, the rape part too. That's a thing that only affects young women, and why would the collective of old women (i.e. progressives) want to improve their lot in life given evopsych tells them, correctly, that they're nothing but dangerous rivals?

I don't think it's necessarily an old vs. young women thing.

For the most part, neither young nor old Western women are able and willing to Notice the association between increased third world immigration and increased rates of sexual assault in the first place. Hence variations on the meme that "women will vote for importing more third world migrants one moment then complain that the streets aren't safe for walking at night the next." It's mostly men who are the pesky Noticers, but even the majority of men are willfully oblivious on this front.

I'm pretty sure progressives are mostly young.

No, they're just the loudest.

Who do you think "a couple crazy kids on college campuses" were enabled by?

Today is the first time I might feel something akin to national pride. Mild pride, mind you

"What's the opposite of shame?"

"Pride?"

"No, not that far from shame."

"Less shame?"

The Europeans have the opportunity to do the funniest thing here and start negotiating a Russian presence in Greenland (since the only reason America would even want the island is to counter Russia).

Alas, at the behest of the neurotic Baltics, traumatized Poles, and what passes for British foreign policy, playing hardball is anathema to the Europeans for now.

Impossible, the world is changing but the power of inertia is making Europeans stick to the good old storylines

That genuinely would be a casus bellum though

Yes, but in an unusual and interesting way, since it would allow the Europeans to get concession from Russia on Ukraine to the extent that an American presence might no longer be necessary to achieve a ‘frozen line’ peace there, and because if done quickly and stealthily enough, the US would have to commit to a shooting and bombing war against Russian troops, not proxies, in a way that has never really happened absent a couple of edge cases since the 1950s.

It's still not clear to me what exactly the US wants to do with Greenland that they cannot already do. They already have a military base in Greenland and I can't imagine that (before this whole kerfuffle) Denmark would have made a big deal about a larger military presence of the USA in Greenland. Why bully and alienate countries in your sphere of influence to get something you already have?

It's still not clear to me what exactly the US wants to do with Greenland that they cannot already do

It's not 'the US' per se, it's Trump. His worldview seems to be extremely zero-sum. Hence the mercantilism, the grasping at Ukraine's minerals, and the desire to annex Canada and Greenland. Combine that with a feeling that the western hemisphere should be the US' sphere of influence, and the threats/bribes towards Europe make sense.

He has such a strong hold over the Republican party that he's been able to drag them along with his zany schemes, although I'm not sure what Trumpism will look like once Vance takes over. Maybe less chaotic but more driven by whatever is happening on right-wing Twitter.

I'm not sure what Trumpism will look like once Vance takes over.

The odds that Vance gets shoved in a locker the moment Trump exits are quite high.

huh? Trump's current actual (and terrible) foreign policy, not his rhetoric, is the preferred foreign policy of the establishment GOP

it's his own base and supporters who do not like it

We don't trust Denmark, and we especially don't trust the people of Greenland. Simple as.

One example I've heard brought up was in 2018, Greenland was courting a Chinese company as a major investor in one of their airports - against the wishes of the Danes I might add! It didn't go through after much controversy, but the fact that Greenland can choose to partner with China, or Russia, or whomever, is a serious risk.

The idea that they're 'in our sphere of influence', and so we can just rely on them to be our buddies forever, is counter to the worldview of the administration. We've seen disasters like the Panama canal, which we gave back to our friends the Panamanians, and which is now de-facto controlled by Chinese companies, and taken the lesson that anything we don't directly control will eventually be co-opted by our enemies. It's not an unreasonable conclusion based on recent history, even if it chafes at our allies in Europe to hear it.

I can't imagine that (before this whole kerfuffle) Denmark would have made a big deal about a larger military presence of the USA in Greenland

If Trump was proposing it, I'm about 70% likelihood they'd have made a big deal of it.

Look at a globe and put the north pole at the center of your vision. You have Russia on one side, and America on the other. The arctic is already becoming a sea route, and greenland is positioned to be a major part of that. Canada controls a lot of the territory there, and doesn't have the economy or the will to be a powerful western force.

It's about countering Russia and China. They both want increased presence in our sphere, and Greenland is a good place to assert our control. The Europeans are also incapable of managing this.

It's about countering Russia and China.

This is what people are saying but fail to acknowledge that the US has virtual carte blanch militarily since the end of WWII. They have a standing agreement with Denmark that allows the US to use Greenland with almost no limitations for military purposes. The only limitation was/is no nuclear weapons. A limitation the US was caught breaking during the Cold War, but resulted in a defacto don't ask don't tell policy from Copenhagen.

The US has run down their military presence to one base with about 250 guys hanging around painting rocks and sweeping dirt.

There's two options. One, that this isn't about the stated reasons re: China and Russia. Or two, that somebody in the White House came up with this idea and didn’t know about the standing agreement before they went public.

It would be a matter or routine diplomacy to increase US presence in Greenland from a token force to a significant one. And routine diplomacy to renegotiate the agreement for even more military access and cement a "no chinese access to public or private infrastructures".

Whatever is going on, it doesn't make sense with the information available to the public. The formal integration of Greenland into the US is not in line with the stated goals of the government. It isn't strengthening the geopolitical position of the US, as it's fracturing US/EU relations, and making it more likely that Denmark eventually revokes US access to the territory.

In addition, instead of Slavic attention being pointed across the Baltic, which aligns with the stated anti-Russia goals of the White House, now half the EU is at least considering the deployment of serious assets to Greenland.

Having Denmark send 40 F35s to Greenland instead of hanging over the Baltic is not what the US wants if it's interested in countering Russia.

Either there's something weird going on, or the White House is as incompetent as they've been accused of being.

They both want increased presence in our sphere, and Greenland is a good place to assert our control.

The Europeans are also incapable of managing this.

I'm not american or european. But if this is the best the US can do in favour of the geopolitical strategy to deter China and Russia, the government is totally retarded.

"Let's assert control over an important piece of territory that we already have control over. The Eurocucks won't do anything about it anyway and they won't fight Russia if we want them to. Let's risk blowing up NATO and driving the cringers in Brussels to reneg on all standing defence pacts lol"

This is so against the interests of US geopolitics that I'm surprised to see this view pushed outside of a tweet by a US state senator.

It's about countering Russia and China. They both want increased presence in our sphere

This is a paper-thin pretext and you should be embarrassed to even give it the time of day, nevermind parrot it. First of all, Russia has ample opportunity to attack the US from thousands of miles of its arctic shoreline with the shortest path not passing over Greenland. The melting of ice will only magnify this as our submarines will be get far more space for maneuver. Second, normal NATO mechanisms allow the US to weaponize Greenland however, and the US is not even demanding more or better terms of military presence. Russia and China in general would have a very hard time securing Greenland, Russian expeditionary capacity is laughable and China would take decades to build theirs.

The simplest explanation is that Trump just wants Greenland, probably to strip mine it. Whether that makes economic sense, I am not sure.

The simplest explanation is that Trump just wants Greenland, probably to strip mine it. Whether that makes economic sense, I am not sure.

The simplest explanation is that Trump just wants it, because it looks big on the map. 666D chess theory disproven again, Great Man theory proven again.

our submarines

So, after everything that happened, you still see Russian war machine as "yours". Well, you can take man out of great power, but you cannot take great power out of man.

The simplest explanation is that Trump just wants it, because it looks big on the map.

It doesn't just look big, it is big. Not as big as it looks on a Mercator projection, but big enough.

The simplest explanation is that Trump just wants it, because it looks big on the map.

"Your EU4 campaigns are about completing mission trees and getting achievements. My EU4 campaigns are about making my country's name bigger on the map. We are not the same."

I realize that you've blocked me and won't read this, but I am sure that even trump realizes that Greenland is covered in (on average) 1500 meters of ice, with basically just the coasts actually ice free. Any kind of mining operation would be insanely expensive.

The ice-free part of Greenland is almost as large as California.

It’s such a simple explanation that you can’t even…explain it? Strip mine it for what, exactly? Why would Trump care to strip mine Greenland? Does Greenland do a lot of mining (no)? Is there a mysterious resource that Greenland has that nobody else does?

I mean…yes there is: arctic coastline.

And I’m not “parroting” this. This is obvious to anybody who has even a passing interest in geopolitics and has been a topic or conversation for 20 years at least.

Greenland does in fact have some of the largest known reserves of valuable minerals in the world.

The Tanbreez deposit is not as far along in development—only completing its preliminary economic assessment in 2025—but is also estimated to contain a globally significant deposit of REEs, potentially the world’s largest, at 28.2 million metric tons. Over 27 percent of the project is estimated to consist of heavy rare earths.

That said, it is indeed very uneconomical to develop.

But no matter! Trump got excited even for non-existent Ukrainian rare earths, so this is a no-brainer. And in the glorious AGI-powered future, labor-intensive development will be much more economical, as labor will be mechanized and mass-produced.

«Arctic coastline» is a pathetic excuse, the US in practice faces no limits sans its own fiscal prudence on militarizing Greenland.

That doesn't answer the objection. The US is allied with Canada and Denmark. The US has a history of working through bases in allies' territory, and already has basing rights on Greenland in particular.

Why pointlessly antagonize regional allies with territorial demands instead of just working with them? (We know the answer)

I think we need to be able to make policy around the Greenland territorial waters. Exactly who is allowed to do what there under international law is immensely consequential.

We know the answer? What is it?

Canada sounds like they’re currently trying to stoke an alliance with China, and the Europeans refuse to invest any money defense, they just keep trying to guilt us into paying for it. Not only that, but their immigration policies have massively destabilized their own countries.

We need strong partners. Denmark and Canada, at this point, aren’t. Canada just struck a deal to buy a bunch of shirty Saab fighter jets instead of massively superior F35s as a way of trying to spite us, the people paying for their defense.

Why would Canada be trying to spite the US? Did something happen?

Any problems you have with Canada right now are the result of a one sided failure of American diplomacy. MAGAS like to describe these countries as cucked, but honestly, how cucked would you have to be to buy fighter jets from a country that's threatening to annex you?

What you have to understand about Canada is that we are (the dumbest of) the liberal stereotypes, on average. We pride ourselves on not doing what the US does, even if it’s insanely destructive.

The US requires people to pay for healthcare? Well, we’ll forbid that (unlike European nations which usually offer both a public and private option, we only offer public - as such, we have serious brain drain to the US and wait times that exceed years).

The US is anti immigration? Well, we’ll bring in more immigrants (as an absolute number) than them, even though our population is approximately 10% of theirs.

We elected Carney on a campaign of “elbows up” against the US - despite his party basically ruining our economy over the last 10 years, we decided that rather than appease the giant superpower next to us and the source of most of our trade, we’d rather be prickly about it and make everything worse. Because we hate Trump.

Hell, go to /r/Canada on Reddit and look at any thread about immigration - you’ll see lots of people talking about how badly we need to remove people who overstay their visas, but we can’t do ICE because it’s facist.

how cucked would you have to be to buy fighter jets from a country that's threatening to annex you?

How cucked (or blinded by greed) you have to be to sell weapons to country you intend to forcibly annex? Do you recall Russia selling armaments to Ukraine (after 2014)?

I presume one difference is that the US can disable their weapons, at least F-35s, remotely. So that's not cucking.

Europeans refuse to invest any money defense, they just keep trying to guilt us into paying for it.

EU defense spending has been growing for 11 years and is now at least at 20 year highs.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/defence-numbers/

We know the answer? What is it?

Donald Trump is an impulsive bully. He thinks grabbing territory is a big-dick move and is thug-brained enough to not grasp the diplomatic consequences. All this talk about polar competition is clumsy rationalization.

(Or, if we want to go fully tinfoil, "I'm going to invade Greenland jk unless..." is a preferable headline to "I'm a pedophile.")

Canada sounds like they’re currently trying to stoke an alliance with China

I wonder if the United States government did anything in the past year that might be construed as hostile towards Canada or otherwise make them doubt the integrity of the relationship?

And it's not as if the US isn't engaged in its own schizophrenic courtship with China.

We need strong partners. Denmark and Canada, at this point, aren’t.

What problem is being solved by antagonizing them? Canada, in particular, could be totally, absolutely useless and the US would still need their cooperation in the arctic. I know people here love the idea that it's all 4d chess to troll US allies into rearmament, but it's not. It's never 4d chess.

Canada sounds like they’re currently trying to stoke an alliance with China

Yeah, sounds. What's actually happening behind those doors is "oh shit, please we're sorry about our stupid Boomer electorate for fucking up the country, don't go", in a way that simply isn't symmetric for the US (since the Boomers are more likely to support Trump). A lot of the teeth-gnashing about Trump is because the elites in those countries know that, and having the populace angry means they can blame Trump for their own cascade of failures to reinvest in their own countries (and hence, youth) over the last 20 years. Not that Trump makes himself hard to blame, but I digress.

Not only that, but their immigration policies have massively destabilized their own countries.

Hence why the only people who want to muster a workable defense against the US are the Boomers in those countries. It's hard to prosecute a war with septuagenarian soliders.

the Europeans refuse to invest any money defense, they just keep trying to guilt us into paying for it.

That's also why the Canadians haven't bought the F-35 yet, of course. How long's it been now, 20 years? Dead pilots only cost a few million. Strange, I wonder why nobody wants to join the Air Force now that we've decided we need one? (confused_travolta.gif)

Because Trump has got it in his head that great leaders are the ones who expand their country's territory and Greenland seems like the easiest possibility for expanding bigly. I don't think there's anything else to it at this point, the given explanations don't hold water. Just monkey brain going ""Give Greenland me give annex Greenland me annex Greenland give me annex Greenland give me you."

But is he wrong?

Yes, he is acutely retardedly wrong.

He’s giving up the entire system of being the central node in the worlds largest military alliance and being the privileged position in its whole economic organization just to gain a bit of extra territory.

The territory that he’d be functionally losing far outweighs the frozen island.

But I guess “undid the world order” and “committed hegemon suicide” are both solid ways for him to get into the history books and this may be actually the main thing he’s aiming at.

Is this the sort of a motive where words like "right" or "wrong" even have any meaning?

I mean: is he wrong about what great leaders do?

In the US context, he's mostly wrong, yeah?

Depending on your political alignment, "best president" lists vary widely, but I don't think I've ever seen one where adding territory was a particularly important criterion? It's not nothing, but domestic economics and policies (JFK on one end or Regan on the other) tend to generally be considered more important that territorial expansion?

Or winning wars (Washington, Lincoln, FDR), I guess, but most of those didn't actually come with territory.

The US is so big already and has so much wilderness already that adding more doesn't really move the needle all that much.

Do you think adding territory is what great leaders do in the modern day? Are there specific leaders you're thinking of?

The Louisiana Purchase is usually cited among Jefferson's claims to fame. But "bought a quarter of the country for a song" is impressive in a way that historically-standard conquests usually aren't; Polk isn't given much reverence for Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

Taking Greenland now puts the US in a better position to take Canada later.

Trump has said repeatedly that it's needed for Golden Dome. This makes me wonder if the US plans to put nuclear interceptors there - Danish territory is nuclear-free, although they let us bend the rules in Greenland during the Cold War and still might.

I suppose another possibility is that we think if we owned the land outright we would be able to better bar security threats from the territory in a way the Danes can't or won't.

Several EU countries sent tripwire forces into Greenland a few days ago.

Do the Europoors understand how insulting and alienating this is given their concurrent begging for US help against Russia? Even under Trump something like half of the military aid Ukraine gets is from the United States alone. This Greenland thing would be good cause to pull out of NATO if it wasn’t so impotent and pathetic.

I assume you mean that around half of the equipment sent to Ukraine has a US origin, but paid for by EU money under Trump? Direct US funding has fallen to basically zero under his administration, so I guess that is a win for those seeking to disengage from paying for the conflict directly - the total funding of which was around 0.2% of GDP annually when it was actually being sent in past years. Regan would have died laughing if that was the bill to cause this much of a headache to the Soviet Union.

However, the US could certainly do all kinds of very painful things to further undermine European security and Ukraine in particular for sure, like forbidding the EU from paying the US for weapons, stopping intelligence sharing or pulling out of NATO full stop. Europe is dealing with a reorientation in our relationship with the US, which is certainly likely to leave us all poorer - with only the reward of staying out of future US led entanglements.

You didn't need to call on Article 5 post 911, but you did and found it useful in so many ways, and were the only NATO country to do so. Lets hope for America's sake it never needs to enact it under this Trump presidency, for this is the stupidest prize to burn all that for - Greenland, really? You already had it in everything but name for as many investments and bases as you wanted, and the Danes were paying the subsidies needed to maintain the island into the bargain. This is insanity and the reckless arrogance of Trump spending on America's checkbook of massive power built by saner, stabler minds over a century. The Republican party deserves much better.

Regan would have died laughing if that was the bill to cause this much of a headache to the Soviet Union.

Yes, but Russia isn’t the Soviet Union. Europe’s persistent fake befuddlement over why the party of Reagan doesn’t want to support a pack of deracinated, satanist, bioleninist bureaucrats over the (nominal) defenders of autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality isn’t helping.

You didn't need to call on Article 5 post 911, but you did and found it useful in so many ways

The other members of NATO pushed to invoke article 5, the United States rolled its eyes and agreed. Then you cucked out the second it became inconvenient and left the United States and Britain to fight alone.

Europe’s persistent fake befuddlement over why the party of Reagan doesn’t want to support a pack of deracinated, satanist, bioleninist bureaucrats over the (nominal) defenders of autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality isn’t helping.

Uh, you know Ukraine is a country of based and trad ethnic nationalist religious conservatives, right?

Russia certainly isn't the Soviet Union, it's a weird larp of all the things you accuse Europe of there - high divorce, high crime, high immigration, 10-15% actually practicing Orthodox, high Muslim % and growing rapidly thanks to its war, massive drug abuse and HIV/AIDs, and I'm really confused why you seem to like them or find them in any way preferable to the Danes, who actually have done a lot right and are just chill friends happy to let the US take the lead mostly. 80s Reganite Christians also wouldn't presumably be into the whole weird postmodern 4Chan Pol larp thing of based and cucked and cringe that comes out nowadays and would have recognized where satan sits in the balance of Russia vs Ukraine, but that's an aside.

Anyway, you got what you want surely, the US funding to Ukraine is now tiny and the weapons/all the subsidies are paid for by the EU, isn't that directly opposite to your core point of Europe never carrying any weight? That's the key bit here right?

Then you cucked out

Who is this you in the room? I'm British, but Denmark and the rest of NATO went on all your adventures until pretty late, when the US wrapped everything up and let the sand wash back over all we did in Afghanistan (mostly the US) for better or worse (and there certainly is an argument that it was better to cut our loses). How is that anyone cucking out, other than maybe the US?

By the way, what is the attraction of using the term cucked for international diplomacy? I can never understand it myself.

I still don't quite understand which parts of the European leadership genuinely consider Ukraine a core interest of theirs, which ones are playing the part because of personal obligations to the US (to gaslight their population into believing/accepting US interests as its own), and which ones are doing so because the former two groups have them by the balls. I would've guessed the split is roughly Baltics/Germanics+France/actual Europoors like Spain and Greece.

Since the Greenland "tripwire" deployment is essentially from the second group, they might have thought Greenland is a demand too far after everything they are already surrendering, or (more likely?) see their loyalties as strictly being with the stable "deep state" core of the US and judging the grab for Greenland to be a personal Trump project rather than reflecting an authentic priority of the immortal soul of America.

I still don't quite understand which parts of the European leadership genuinely consider Ukraine a core interest of theirs

Well, it's not so much Ukraine per se, but rather not encouraging more wars of territorial expansion.

Why do you figure they would not consider encouraging more wars of territorial expansion in their interest? I think you could make this argument for France (which, uniquely, still has some sensitive possessions all over the world that would be juicy targets for their neighbours), but there at least doesn't seem to be a direct threat from it to anyone else in the EU.

Why do you figure they would not consider encouraging more wars of territorial expansion in their interest?

Because the damage from such conflicts tends to outweigh the value of the territory gained; thus everyone involved is less able to afford to buy goods from, and produce goods for sale to, everywhere else. A world in which countries regularly start wars over territory is one in which everyone is worse off.

but there at least doesn't seem to be a direct threat from it to anyone else in the EU

Twenty years ago, there didn't seem to be a threat to anyone else from Russia.

Fifty years ago, there didn't seem to be a threat to anyone else from Iran.

A century ago, no one thought China would be of any geopolitical significance.

If wars of territorial aggression become normalised, it is far from certain that the grandchildren of the current leadership will not regard their neighbours with envious eyes, and slowly and surely draw their plans against one another.

If wars of territorial aggression become normalised,

If you don't want that, I'll be happy to see you at the anti-Israel protest marches!

Anti-'Israel-expanding-beyond-the-Green-Line' or anti-'Israel-existing-at-all'?

If those favouring a two-state solution were to tell those advocating an Arab-Palestine-from-the-river-to-the-sea, like the gay rights movement told the pedophiles, "You can't sit with us!", I would regard them with more sympathy.

I am referring to both the Golan Heights and the continued expansion of the Yellow line. As for me personally I favour a single-state solution with full democracy, along with some denazification efforts/war-crime prosecutions.

But either way, there's zero credibility in condemnations of wars of aggression for lebensraum that mysteriously pass over Israel, because that makes it clear that it isn't wars of aggression that you're objecting to but some secret other motive. "Wars of aggression are fine for me but not for thee" is not a particularly compelling message that will convince anyone to support your cause.

More comments

Do the Europoors understand how insulting and alienating this is given their concurrent begging for US help against Russia?

It seems perfectly coherent to ask for help against territorial aggression and also hedge against the risk of territorial aggression. This entire Greenland business is absolutely batshit insane on multiple levels. If this were any other president we'd be talking 25A or impeachment.

Yes, the "europoors" care more about their sovereign territory than tariffs or hypothetical pull backs of Ukraine aid.

Do the Europoors understand how insulting and alienating this is given their concurrent begging for US help in Russia?

…Does the US understand how insulting it is to insist on tearing part of a resource-rich territory out of your steadfast ally and treaty member on a paper-thin pretext of ChinaRussia?

This Greenland thing would be good cause to pull out of NATO if it wasn’t so impotent and pathetic.

Yeah you go and do that.

Denmark should offer Putin a base in Greenland next to America’s and see how Trump reacts.

May I bring this banger to your notice?

Why Putin? Xi! Russia is defanged, they've had it. Their military, diplomatic power, and fearsome reputation burnt out like so many old tanks. Just in time, so we can finally tell Trump to go fuck himself. Absent the russian threat, there's no reason for the americans to stick around. A chinaman never threatened my sovereign territory. They just love building ports. I already find our new allies so endearing, I'll throw in ramstein air base as a welcome gift.

That just gives Trump the pretense he needs to invade militarily.

I think that would shake things up in a profoundly interesting way.

It's very interesting to see you be even more bloodthirsty and drama-pilled than Count.

The status quo is increasingly untenable, and I’d like to see the necessary changes happen before AI takes over everything and makes every single conflict potentially species-ending.

Trump has stated he plans to seize Greenland by force, putting a tripwire force in place is simply good sense, regardless of what is happening in Ukraine.

I don't know if there's a way to say this that will be well-received, or if it possibly violates some rule for here but reading this post I can only think that you should try taking a break from internet politics and spending some time outside of whatever bubbles you're in.

Do the Europoors understand how insulting and alienating this is given their concurrent begging for US help against Russia?

Trump insulted Denmark first (and by extension, everyone invested in the European project) by announcing that the US is going to take Greenland. Claiming to be hurt by the European response is hard to take seriously.

The American cries out in pain as he strikes you

LMAO. Europe needs to get a good kicking to jolt it out of being the USA's little bitch, a position it has dutifully played for the last 75 years. This should be the breaking point but we all know that it'll just lead to more "but muh international law" from spineless leaders as they slowly go along with it. The only good thing going to come out of all this is going to be seeing Europe be on the receiving end of what these countries did and continue to do to the third world.

We all know the next thing that's going to happen is that the US will threaten to pull out of the Ukraine deal unless Europe hands over Greenland, which will be responded to by the Europeans with more moderately worded letters (it shows how cucked the Europe of 2026 is that they don't have the constitution to even send strongly worded letters over direct attacks to their territorial sovereignty).

The only real solution here is to abolish the welfare state, a largesse the continent can no longer afford, and redirect the money into long term capital investments. It'll also massively cut down on illegal immigration once the immigrants very quickly realize they won't be getting much or even anything if they come to Europe.

Europe needs to get a good kicking to jolt it out of being the USA's little bitch

May I ask that you familiarize yourself with the concept of BATNA.

Hm. Just abolish it? What's your plan for all the disabled people, pensioners without savings, unemployable people, etc?

Let them figure it out themselves, im done paying 50% of my tax.

Absolutely based. Don't forget to include Payroll Taxes which are basically a tax on you as well. And then if you include VAT etc. it's well above 50% here in the UK.

Based.

However, as a productive male, paying 50% of your income to taxes is Doing the Bare Minimum in fulfilling your end of the Social Contract.

The currently figured out solution is that you keep paying 50% of your tax, no matter how "done" you are.

Evidently it's you who has to figure something out if you want change.

Europeans will riot if you abolish the welfare state. It can only happen like Greece during the crisis (although there were still plenty of riots then) where there’s no money and the government says it’s this or we starve. Even the French aren’t there yet.

I think France is the only European country where young people will riot in defence of benefits for the elderly. And, just like everywhere else, the bit of European welfare states that needs to shrink is the welfare state for the old, not the welfare state for the poor.

Unfortunately even in Britain polling consistently showed young and middle aged people in favor of the triple lock, winter fuel / cruise payment etc.

I don't disagree with you - I just don't think the British youth is going to riot over this.

Quite apart from views on the issues, France just has a stronger rioting culture than the UK does. Historically, the kind of British youth who would be a serial rioter in France would have become a football hooligan instead.

No riots are necessary right now because whoever does it will be voted out and no party leader has a strong enough whip to even pass a parliamentary vote on it anyway, their own MPs would rather remove them than end the triple lock.

Part of it I suspect is that everyone knows the government will never, ever voluntarily give up revenue and control, so it's more a question of 'would you like at least some of the money the government steals to come back to you'? Especially since they're the only things that aren't means-tested.

Let's have those riots, then. It's that or the prospects will continue to be slowly choked out of Europe by the perverse incentives and bottomless fiscal holes set up by public welfare.

The only real solution here is to abolish the welfare state, a largesse the continent can no longer afford, and redirect the money into long term capital investments.

You would have to abolish democracy first. They will never do this of their own free will.

Let's go. If democracy can't fix this, then it's over either way. Might as well stop the bread and circuses, rip off the band-aid and say it like it is - the people is corrupt and ineffectual and unfit to govern itself. Do we have some long-lost relatives of Kaisers Wilhelm, Heinrich, Friedrich lying around? Or a Sulla, a Napoleon, or a D'Annunzio? Anyone willing to actually steer the ship and order people to bail water?

And don't get me wrong, Liberal Democracy was fair for its time. It worked well when it was reasonably new. But by now it's rotten to the core and all the bad actors (which is most of the populace) know how to break, subvert and exploit it. Time to make some new and exciting mistakes. Or just be ground into history's dustbin by sticking to what clearly does not work anymore.

I'm more than happy to become brutal dictator of Germany. I suspect, however, that the relevant institutions in Germany strongly disagree.

Obviously we need someone more upright and trustworthy. I thereby humbly accept this burden as my duty.

I guess this is precisely why the Trump admin is heavily discounting their importance. Many European allies are like a rapidly depreciating currency. By the time you try to cash them in, they're going to be worthless.

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