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The issue then was that he wanted to treat Greenland like property that could be purchased. His approach showed a lack of understanding of how the kingdom of Denmark was structured, as well as a complete lack of respect for the inhabitants of Greenland. Him being ridiculed had nothing to do with wanting to protect American interests or increase military presence, and everything to do with him looking like a bumbling idiot who thought that he could treat international diplomacy like a property deal.
Sometimes I think that most people in democratic societies just want to be pandered to.
Ok, Denmark is a very special boy with very important traditions we understand and respect. We apologize for trying to purchase territory in a mutually-beneficial transaction, and we apologize for putting the mashed potatoes next to the peas. In the spirit of understanding we would like to propose instead a schmurchase of Greenlandic schmerritory in something we would like to call a schmansaction, which we only reserve for our bestest most special boy allies in the whole world. Instead of offering money for territory we would like instead to control some pieces of Greenland for which we are willing to reward you with community investment and strategic support.
But this isn't true actually because if that had been the issue this would have all been handled in private six or seven years ago. It was treated as a ridiculous punchline which can be easily verified by reading the old stories.
AP sources: Trump has talked about buying Greenland for US
(Side note: The AP will never correct themselves for being demonstrably wrong. It's also extremely unlikely that the majority of readers will ever update. You're supposed to get the impression that Trump is ridiculous, or not to be taken seriously, or absurd, and if later it comes out that he was earnest or even right it will never be conceded.)
Danish PM: Trump’s interest in buying Greenland is ‘absurd’
Trump rightfully took offense at this because his comments up until this point had mostly been exploratory, made in private, or casual:
President Trump Eyes a New Real-Estate Purchase: Greenland
Of course it was the Europeans who got nasty first and with the usual selective memory now all anybody remembers is that Trump was mean.
Calling what Trump did “mean” is not a good faith argument. He declined to rule out using military force. He essentially threatened to invade them. Just like saying he was mean to Canada wouldn’t be good faith. He talked about them being the 51 state. Threatening to annex territory of your allies is insane behavior and a massive escalation. Doing that because you got offended over another country’s response to your “deal” is not a proportional response. I don’t see how you can’t see this from their point of view.
I'm not a fan of the guy, but as far as I can tell, he has a pattern of "declining to rule out" generally that I assume stems from the business world, and keeping options open.
I think journalists have noticed this and run with it, because "Trump refuses to rule out [shocking thing]" headlines are scary and sell papers. Not to say that some of the specifics aren't ill-advised or major policy changes, either: the Greenland thing seems dumb, from what I've read.
But "strategic ambiguity" has been a (IMO reasonable) policy elsewhere for a long time, and frequently attempts to force a commitment ahead of time are intended to limit options in the future. "Would the US enter a hot war with China to defend Taiwan? If yes, exactly how forcefully?" That gives away a lot to anyone planning an invasion. A "no first use" nuclear policy sounds great, but really limits escalation options even defensively.
Yes, but there's a time and a place. To take a deliberately extreme example, a businessman who declines to rule out raping your wife isn't keeping his options open; that's not an option you're supposed to have. Or to want, for that matter.
No, if you’re trying to deal with someone and your counterparty suddenly loudly asks you if you’ll rule out doing some shocking thing, the correct answer is no and you should understand why. It’s obnoxious behavior; you return serve.
Anyone stupid enough to be fooled by this sort of rhetorical trick has already been tricked the previous 3,000 times, so this will simply be reason #3,001 to hate you.
And you plainly do hate us.
The conflict between American Reds and Blues continues to escalate, with no end in sight. Consensus European values are innately hostile to American Red Values and virtually indistinguishable from American Blue values. European institutions are joined at the hip to uniformly-Blue American institutions, and there is no reason to expect this to change. Anything resembling a European Red Tribe has been thoroughly suppressed and is utterly incapable of meaningful cooperation with American Reds in any but the loosest sense. Given these facts, there is no route for meaningful cooperation with Europe as it currently stands, any more than there is with American Blues. There is no way to get along, because our values are flatly incompatible; "Cooperation" means securing support for Blue Tribe in their efforts to remake America into something much more like what Europe is now, and that is not a form of cooperation worth pursuing.
I sympathize with European Red-analogues, but there is very little to be done. The overwhelming consensus in your societies is overwhelmingly hostile to everything I value, so it needs to be fought vigorously.
Would European Red-analogues, if they were had their day in the limelight, even be natural allies to American Reds? The existence of a "Blue Ummah" is, in a way, the intrinsic advantage of Blues; globalists everywhere have common cause, but nationalists can only have temporary allies of convenience. I forget if it was SSC or some other blog in the general sphere that proposed the thought experiment of some lizard species where a subset could be identified as cooperate-bots with a visual signal only visible to fellow cooperate-bots and thereby outcompeted all the others (as a metaphor for certain mind-killing minorities), but it's kind of like that except the signal is not even secret.
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