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Notes -
So something actually happened regarding Greenland.
Details are fuzzy, but Trump just posted that the US made an agreement with Denmark and Greenland gives the US permanent military control over Greenland, the right to expand its military presence there and, most importantly, to veto any foreign intervention on the island.
This will not make Greenland a part of the United States, which means Mercator Projection dominance lies beyond our grasp for now.
Critics will point out that this doesn't really change anything since the U.S. already had de-facto military control over Greenland. I think in these case the critics would be wrong. If Trump's post is accurate, this does seem substantially different from the previous agreement. It's permanent, the US can expand with Denmark's permission, and they can deny foreign expansion without Denmark's say so.
It's unclear exactly what the US gave up in order to get these concessions, but Trump says it will cost the US taxpayer nothing. Perhaps there are trade concessions?
What's somewhat interesting is that the US barely has a presence on Greenland at all anymore. At one point, in the Cold War, it stationed 10,000 troops there consisting of a quarter of Greenland's population. Today, just 150-200 unlucky souls man the Pituffik Space Base in northern Greenland. Perhaps that's what makes this agreement valuable. The U.S. can now deny adversaries such as China a perch in Greenland without having to actually send in troops.
This seems like a big nothing burger to keep Trump happy. Isn't this just the 1951 deal except with the USSR replaced by China and Russia? And it's not like Denmark was going to allow China to station soldiers there or China would even want to anyway. It just seems like great headlines but no substantial change.
It prevents the Chinese from investing in Greenland, which they have been doing in the form of buying up mining rights. They've even tried buying the abandoned Grønnedal naval base in Greenland in 2016. That was rebuffed with pressure from Washington but there was no guarantee CCP-backed Chinese companies wouldn't keep trying and one day succeed.
https://pure.diis.dk/ws/files/4834625/Chinese_investments_in_Greenland_DIIS_Report_2021_05.pdf
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