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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.
This is how Trump responded after being disrespected. The original dispute was that Trump mused to some aides about the possibility of purchasing Greenland, which everyone treated as a priori absurd. That was 7 years ago, it's only now that Trump's ideas have been taken seriously.
Maybe he should have clarified the misunderstanding instead of assuming disrespect. Or is that only an onus placed on countries that aren't USA?
"Assuming disrespect"? Danish politicians called Trump absurd and crazy because he wanted to negotiate a land deal. Danish politicians were far, far more disrespectful to Trump than Trump ever was to them, unless the concept of wanting to negotiate a land deal is inherently disrespectful.
See? You do get it, even if you don't agree with it.
That would be one of the craziest positions I have ever heard.
And there is the trademark American response to being told no. Congratulations. We have successfully laid bare the source of Trump's recent diplomatic problems.
I'm not even being sarcastic, really. This is literally it. This is how it went down, recreated live.
If you want to defend the position that asking to buy land is inherently disrespectful please do that in plain language.
What are you expecting me to say? There are things that are commonly understood to not be for sale. You do not peer through someone's window and then ring their doorbell and ask how much they want for the plush sofa. You don't negotiate for someone's virgin daughter. You don't try to purchase the largest part of a country's territory, especially when said territory is nominally self-governing. Doing these things is not going to be greeted by interest or by a long explanation of the sociological details that lead to such requests being considered inappropriate. It's going to be greeted by an invitation to take a long walk off a short pier.
Ignoring people's desire not to give you something, up to and including refusing to rule out taking it by force, then makes that 100x times worse.
If you must have a long discussion on the long-term effects of postwar American third-worldism, and how WW2 affected people's understanding of the appropriate relationship between large strong nations and smaller weaker ones, especially ones who were already loyal allies, and how economic interests (don't) trade off against sacred values, I suppose we can, but frankly I don't want to and I doubt it will make any difference to you.
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