I just watched President Trump make his pitch for Greenland at the WEF in Davos.  This is serious, and Trump isn’t letting this go.

You know how Trump gives speeches.  This is what I got out of it.

The US is the only superpower, and no other country has the ability or the inclination to handle international conflicts.  Bombing the Iran nuclear facility is one example.  Other countries don’t put money or effort into NATO because they expect the US to handle it, even though the US doesn’t need NATO.

Trump had to brow-beat NATO countries into paying their NATO dues.  Beyond that, the US doesn’t ask for anything from other countries in return.  Now, we’re asking for Greenland.  We need it to keep the world safe from threats.  It’s not about rare earth minerals.

We need to own it because we don’t want to dump money into a rental property.

There was other stuff in the speech, but that’s it on Greenland. 

Trump seems to be right on the rare earth minerals.   Here’s a map.  They aren’t so rare, countries just have to go to the effort of mining and refining. 

There are prior instances in which we told NATO that this is what we need to stay in the club.  Trump insisting on dues payment was one.   After WW II, the US insisted that Germany needed to arm up to support NATO.  Europe wasn’t happy about that, but went along.  Same thing with Okinawa.

It sounded like Trump isn’t convinced that European countries would come to our aid if we needed them.  With their societal declines, he doubts that they would be able to.  When Germany closed their nuke plants, they relied on oil purchases from Russia.  The implication is that they are unreliable allies.

The illustration at the top of this post shows enemy missile trajectories.  My first flight to Hong Kong was a Delta flight out of Detroit.  We flew over the North Pole to get there.

 In May, Trump announced that a “Golden Dome” missile defense system was going to be implemented to protect the US.  My guess is that Greenland is needed to implement that system.

There are 56,000 people living in Greenland.  They are self-governed, but get a billion dollars per year from Denmark.  There seem to be deep ties between them and Denmark.

Using my VR headset, I used the Google Earth app to look around Greenland.  That place is a wasteland.  Yeah, natural beauty and all that.  Polar bears and walruses are a treasure.  But good Lord.  I started getting depressed, so flew down to the Grand Canyon to see real natural beauty.

There is a solution, and Trump will get them there.  Greenland has a national park, called Greenland North East National Park.  In land area, it’s half-way between Texas and Alaska.   The red part is the park.

The park is the size of Egypt, but much less habitable or picturesque.

The park gives all the Northern exposure the US would need and the East side allows monitoring of the enemy ships or subs.

Any military expansion on in Greenland would be expensive and may require equipment the US doesn’t want to discuss with Greenland or Denmark.

The US Space Force has Pituffik Space Base in the North-West corner of Greenland.  The US is allowed to operate the base as long as Denmark and the US remain NATO members.

That may be the entire sticking point.  That base is leverage that Denmark can use to keep the US in NATO. 

It might be enough to renegotiate that joint defense agreement.  Denmark can probably do that without consulting Greenland’s government.

If Trump needs more than just that base, then Greenland’s government and citizens get involved.

Greenland has 56,000 people, but no roads between the towns and settlements scattered along the Southern coast.  There really isn’t much there.  If the residents are forced to leave, but given a million dollars each, they will still act like they are being raped. 

If the US can get by with just an Egypt-sized park, then the residents will be pissed, but can probably be bought off with some improvements.