“Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory”

President Donald Trump reportedly wants to acquire Greenland for the United States. Your eyes have not deceived you.

This is real. Can you even imagine the ramifications of such a thing? It’s hard to comprehend.

Personally, I love this idea, and not just to watch heads explode across the country. It would be great for America and for Greenland, a country which, let’s face it, just doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

This report by Vivian Salama, Rebecca Ballhaus, Andrew Restuccia and Michael C. Bender of the Wall Street Journal is an amazing read:

President Trump Eyes a New Real-Estate Purchase: Greenland President Trump made his name on the world’s most famous island. Now he wants to buy the world’s biggest. The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer’s imagination, according to people familiar with the discussions, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea. Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it was a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination that will never come to fruition. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort were serious. With a population of about 56,000, Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen. Mr. Trump is scheduled to make his first visit to Denmark early next month, although the visit is unrelated, these people said.

This part is great:

People outside the White House have described purchasing Greenland as an Alaska-type acquisition for Mr. Trump’s legacy, advisers said. The few current and former White House officials who had heard of the notion described it with a mix of anticipation and apprehension, since it remains unknown how far the president might push the idea.

Students of history may know this isn’t the first time the government floated around this idea.

The Associated Press reports:

Wanna Buy Greenland? The United States Once Did The United States in 1946 proposed to pay Denmark $100 million to buy Greenland after flirting with the idea of swapping oil-rich land in Alaska for strategic parts of the bleak Arctic island, documents in the National Archives show. The $100 million was to be in gold. And even though the sale did not go through, the United States ended up with the military bases it wanted anyway. Discovery of the documents, which have been declassified since the early 1970s, was first reported Sunday by the Copenhagen newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Imagine visiting the lovely capital city of Nuuk.

Just for fun, here’s a recent news report in Greenlandic from Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa:

Mr. President, make this happen.

Don’t take no for an answer. It’s just a negotiation tactic.

#Greenland is rich in valuable resources such as minerals, the purest water and ice, fish stocks, seafood, renewable energy and is a new frontier for adventure tourism. We're open for business, not for sale❄️????? learn more about Greenland on: https://t.co/WulOi3beIC — Greenland MFA ?? (@GreenlandMFA) August 16, 2019

Featured image via YouTube.



