I will point out that NATO-minus-the-US has more active duty military personnel (1,934,735) and reserves (1,438,950) than the US does (1,315,600 and 797,200 respectively).
The slight fly in that ointment is a lot of rNATO have 'interesting' views on the country that supplies the second largest army in NATO.
Russia is also a potential threat to NATO and Turkish control of the gateway to the Black Sea is more important than diplomatic prejudice. An alliance that can't overcome such obstacles was never much of an alliance to begin with, if we take your assertion as true.
Very prosaically we can see which leaders spoke and who sent troops.
In most situations like this geography and manpower trump "interesting views".
That they oppose Trump doesn't mean that they necessarily disagree with all of his Islamophobic and ethno-nationalist views.
Another 'interesting view' - and a very racist one - was aired by a pro-Trump Congressman on BBC2's Newsnight just now.
He said that Denmark and other European NATO powers couldn't defend Greenland because they 'can't even defend their cities from West African invasion.'
Eh?
I wish someone had asked him whether it was NATO's role to stop black people emigrating to Europe, if that's what he was referring to.
Since when has immigration been a military matter and which cities have been taken over by West Africans? Paris? Copenhagen?
The Greenlander minister they had on the programme made very salient points the Congressman failed to answer. The fact that the US could expand its military presence on Greenland without actually owning it was mentioned in the programme but I would have liked to see that point put to the Congressman.
There was also a point made that some Republicans are trying to build some intellectual justification around Trump's declarations by saying that you can only properly defend something if you own it.
Right.
So the US then has to own all the territories where it currently has military bases.
The Congressman said something about Alberta wanting to become part of the USA and how they'd be better off if they were.
Perhaps they could do a deal whereby Washington State and other parts of the US's western seaboard could become Canadian in exchange?
As for Trump's AI map of him haranguing European leaders against a backdrop of a map of all North America, including Canada, covered by the Stars and Stripes ... what the?!
Ok, the polls are showing a decline in his popularity so it could be bluster and I can't see this appealing to anyone outside the MAGA cult, but how did we get to this state where the so-called 'leader of the free world' commissions crass cartoons of himself taking over other people's sovereign territory in the name of that freedom?
Another 'interesting view' - and a very racist one - was aired by a pro-Trump Congressman on BBC2's Newsnight just now.
He said that Denmark and other European NATO powers couldn't defend Greenland because they 'can't even defend their cities from West African invasion.'
It's long been an article of faith on much of the American right that Europe is being overrun by immigrants.
You used to see this years ago with people talking about 'no go' areas where 'sharia law' held sway.
There are more "sophisticated" proponents of this view like Niall Ferguson and Doug Murray, but it's essentially great replacement theory with extra steps. Trump's appeal to Austria, Italy and Hungary back in 2025 was more of the same, with the idea that Orban in particular is some kind of bulwark defending Christendom (I've seen the same messaging from the talking heads of the New Apostolic movement like Lance Wallnau).
Another 'interesting view' - and a very racist one - was aired by a pro-Trump Congressman on BBC2's Newsnight just now.
He said that Denmark and other European NATO powers couldn't defend Greenland because they 'can't even defend their cities from West African invasion.'
Eh?
Meanwhile, they've got Bessant as the champion of northern indigenous communities, bewailing the(admittedly pretty awful) human-rights violations visited upon the Greenlandic people by Denmark.
Kinda reminds me of the various post-9/11 wars, where the ministry of truth had eg. some of its media staffed with Christian Zionists promoting plans to flood liberated Iraq with darbyite bibles, and others staffed with New Atheists claiming the invasion would fulfill the glorious mission of Thomas Paine.
(But both the bible-thumping and liberal neo-con factions of the war party knew how to work their respective issues better than Trump and co. There probably coulda been a way for this administration to spin Denmark's human-rights record to good PR advantage on a global scale, but you'd need to get that going right from the start, rather than just have the most rando cabinet-minister bring it up outta the blue.)
Meanwhile Greenlanders have responded by....making TikTok videos mocking US fentanyl addicts. People on Facebook are sharing the videos of Greenlanders mocking addicts and saying it’s proof the US needs ICE to clean up the streets. It’s just free propaganda for Trump, and punching down on marginalised people. I have to say that it makes me hugely less sympathetic towards Greenlanders, especially given the fact that a lot of US addicts are Native. Making fun of addicted victims of the first American genocide is not exactly speaking truth to power.
Another 'interesting view' - and a very racist one - was aired by a pro-Trump Congressman on BBC2's Newsnight just now.
He said that Denmark and other European NATO powers couldn't defend Greenland because they 'can't even defend their cities from West African invasion.'
It's long been an article of faith on much of the American right that Europe is being overrun by immigrants.
You used to see this years ago with people talking about 'no go' areas where 'sharia law' held sway.
There are more "sophisticated" proponents of this view like Niall Ferguson and Doug Murray, but it's essentially great replacement theory with extra steps. Trump's appeal to Austria, Italy and Hungary back in 2025 was more of the same, with the idea that Orban in particular is some kind of bulwark defending Christendom (I've seen the same messaging from the talking heads of the New Apostolic movement like Lance Wallnau).
Explicit orbanism was also attempting to inch its way into the hyper-nationalist, anti-American crowd on the Canadian left in the late 2010s or so. There was one amateur blogger flooding other people's message boards with red-brown hybrid theories along the lines of "Amerikan foreign policy is evil because the endless wars create refugees[ie. a point most leftists would agree with] who then flood into Europe and overrun the welfare-state and clash with the existing culture[ie. a point broadly identical to identiarian claims about the impact of migration],", presumably in the hope that the first topic would lead progressives down the rabbit hole into embracing anti-immigration theories.
He eventually outted himself as a literal orbanite, and then I think finally got banned from the forum he was leeching off of.
Here's another part of the equation: European countries own $8 trillion in US bonds and equities. The US has a huge national debt that gets bigger every year, a lot of it financed by entities outside the US. US stocks fell hard today. What happens if Europe decides they don't want to finance our debt any longer?
On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed market speculation that Europe could dump its US assets in retaliation for Trump's tariff threat over Greenland.
"There is no talk in European governments," Bessent told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, calling it a "completely false narrative."
"It defies any logic, and I could not disagree more strongly on that."
I find this hard to believe. If the US continues to be in tumult, I don't see why other countries would want to be super exposed to the financial risk this could pose. And it's also leverage - they could say, in essence, stop threatening us or we won't keep financing your debt.
Even someone as economically illiterate as Trump could hardly fail to see the risk, Ruth. Or is that crediting him and his advisers with more functioning brain cells than they have.
The whole tariff strategy contains the risk of seriously damaging the dollar as the predominant reserve currency. I guess the argument has been “they wouldn’t dare”. Well of course they might. Or at least start the process of selling off to spook the markets into bear territory.
It’s not a nuclear option. Gradual responses could be very damaging to the US.
Ok, the polls are showing a decline in his popularity so it could be bluster and I can't see this appealing to anyone outside the MAGA cult,
The niggling worry I have is that starting a major war is a pretty reliable way of getting a short-term poll boost. Look at Bush's approval rating when the invasion of Iraq began.
Here's another part of the equation: European countries own $8 trillion in US bonds and equities. The US has a huge national debt that gets bigger every year, a lot of it financed by entities outside the US. US stocks fell hard today. What happens if Europe decides they don't want to finance our debt any longer?
Conversely, European nations also have large debts (in most cases not as large as a percentage of GDP as the US, but not that far behind, and some nations having much higher %GDP debt than the US), with some of that held by US financial institutions. Using the debt held in Europe to leverage the US administration into particular policy directions (ie: not trying to acquire Greenland) risks retaliation with European debt held in the US - the numbers are quite different and I expect the impact on US budget would be greater, but there will be harm both ways.
Of course, China holds even more US debt than European nations, as well as some of the European debt. A "debt war" between the US and Europe will have the effect of increasing the strength of China in our national finances.
I find this hard to believe. If the US continues to be in tumult, I don't see why other countries would want to be super exposed to the financial risk this could pose. And it's also leverage - they could say, in essence, stop threatening us or we won't keep financing your debt.
The debt is an asset to someone else, in this case the those Treasury bonds mostly represent the aggregate savings of individuals, and you are really asking whether Europeans are willing to blow up their pensions to punish Trump (bearing in mind that there aren't many alternative savings assets out there that exist in sufficient volume, this video on de-dollarization touches on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo2BxTcVp74&t=81s )
That's before you get into possible retaliation, which could include limiting the ability of foreign banks to transact in dollars by freezing their reserve accounts thus inhibiting the ability of certain countries to trade, or putting pressure on Mastercard/Visa to stop transactions in certain regions.
Of course the damage would be massively mutual if the sell off was total. That’s not the way it would work. A significant partial sell off would illustrate the old Lasker chess dictum. “The threat is more powerful than the execution”.
The political calculation, I suppose. is whether Trump has become weak enough, and would not be strengthened by another country or trading bloc standing up for itself, threatening massive retaliation.
US self interest is probably being damaged by Trump’s erratic and illogical behaviour. At some point, enough will be enough.
Another 'interesting view' - and a very racist one - was aired by a pro-Trump Congressman on BBC2's Newsnight just now.
He said that Denmark and other European NATO powers couldn't defend Greenland because they 'can't even defend their cities from West African invasion.'
It's long been an article of faith on much of the American right that Europe is being overrun by immigrants.
You used to see this years ago with people talking about 'no go' areas where 'sharia law' held sway.
There are more "sophisticated" proponents of this view like Niall Ferguson and Doug Murray, but it's essentially great replacement theory with extra steps. Trump's appeal to Austria, Italy and Hungary back in 2025 was more of the same, with the idea that Orban in particular is some kind of bulwark defending Christendom (I've seen the same messaging from the talking heads of the New Apostolic movement like Lance Wallnau).
Yes, I was aware of links between the US right and the likes of Yaxley-Lennon of course.
Also all the guff about 'sharia law' and 'no-go areas'.
I was surprised though, to hear this stuff aired in an interview about Greenland and NATO. Although I daresay the Congressman knew he'd been outgunned and had no leg to stand on - to mix metaphors.
So he fell back on the 'We're defending Christian civilisation' shtick.
There is common ground between US Protestant fundamentalists and the Putinista's within the Orthodox Church on these issues, of course.
Notice how after the US Markets dropped yesterday, Trump today is saying the military option is not first priority anymore. He did not completely take it off the table, but at least on a back burner.
Wrong market to look at these days. Trump didn't pull back on tariffs last spring when the stock market fell; he did that when the bond markets started screaming. I can't remember where because it was months ago, but I read at the time that his own money is in bonds, not stocks.
It looks as though 2026 will be a bumpy ride for many people, not just the beleaguered Greenlanders. Despite being under the radar lately, Ukraine (for example) battles on...
For this relief, much thanks - whatever the reason for his back-down might be.
I don't think he'll ultimately use force, but I wouldn't place a large bet on that, and after looking at the phrasing, I think much of the reporting is much too straightforward in saying "Trump says he won't use force." To me it's much more ambiguous. He's backed off the threat a bit, but it's still implicit.
Don't look at stuff he says as if he were a normal world leader. Read it like he's a Mafia don. Nice big island full of resources you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
Barnabas 62 wrote"... he old Lasker chess dictum. “The threat is more powerful than the execution”.
To which the goddess of chess replies: It's usually attributed to Nimzowitsch.
Tangent
Whoops! You’re right. The version I heard named Lasker exploiting Nimzowitsch’s hatred of smoking and his use of the saying by placing an unlit cigar by the chess board while playing!
Don't look at stuff he says as if he were a normal world leader. Read it like he's a Mafia don. Nice big island full of resources you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
Or like an abusive partner: I don't want to hurt you. Don't make me hurt you.
Don't look at stuff he says as if he were a normal world leader. Read it like he's a Mafia don. Nice big island full of resources you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
Or like an abusive partner: I don't want to hurt you. Don't make me hurt you.
Yes. Points taken. I think the days of regarding Trump as 'normal' are long gone...
I don't think he'll ultimately use force, but I wouldn't place a large bet on that, and after looking at the phrasing, I think much of the reporting is much too straightforward in saying "Trump says he won't use force." To me it's much more ambiguous.
I think it's even stronger than that. What Trump says he'll do now has no relation to what he'll do in the future.
Even someone as economically illiterate as Trump could hardly fail to see the risk, Ruth. Or is that crediting him and his advisers with more functioning brain cells than they have.
I think Trump is less economically illiterate and more just politically naive. I think John Bolton was probably WRONG in claiming that Trump doesn't understand how tariffs work(I know how they work, and unlike Trump, I never took a business course in my life), but had a highly exaggerated idea of how quick and easy he'd be able to get foreign factories moving stateside.
IOW he did know it would be Americans paying the tariffs, he just thought it wouldn't matter because the market would soon be flooded with non-tariffed goods made in all the brand-new American factories.
I think John Bolton was probably WRONG in claiming that Trump doesn't understand how tariffs work(I know how they work, and unlike Trump, I never took a business course in my life)
I do not know that Trump paid attention in any business courses he took, and aiui he is not known for paying attention to anything that isn't about him.
I see NATO has, at least temporarily, got Trump to lift the threat of tariffs. There talk of a golden dome, I think they maybe trying to find him a rhetorical shiny thing.
I do not know that Trump paid attention in any business courses he took, and aiui he is not known for paying attention to anything that isn't about him.
Well, unless he got zero on all his exams, I think he must've paid attention to something in his classes. Long-term absorption might be a different matter.
I see NATO has, at least temporarily, got Trump to lift the threat of tariffs. There talk of a golden dome, I think they maybe trying to find him a rhetorical shiny thing.
I do not know that Trump paid attention in any business courses he took, and aiui he is not known for paying attention to anything that isn't about him.
Well, unless he got zero on all his exams, I think he must've paid attention to something in his classes. Long-term absorption might be a different matter.
He's bankrupted four businesses, three of them casinos. He's not a great businessman. He just played one on TV.
I do not know that Trump paid attention in any business courses he took, and aiui he is not known for paying attention to anything that isn't about him.
Well, unless he got zero on all his exams, I think he must've paid attention to something in his classes. Long-term absorption might be a different matter.
He's bankrupted four businesses, three of them casinos. He's not a great businessman. He just played one on TV.
Technically not accurate. Trump controlled businesses have gone through six chapter 11 proceedings, but he has never declared bankruptcy himself. He emphasizes that these were strategic business moves rather than personal failures.
I do not know that Trump paid attention in any business courses he took, and aiui he is not known for paying attention to anything that isn't about him.
Well, unless he got zero on all his exams, I think he must've paid attention to something in his classes. Long-term absorption might be a different matter.
He's bankrupted four businesses, three of them casinos. He's not a great businessman. He just played one on TV.
I didn't say he was a great businessman. I know the basics of baseball, having played it for an inglorious six months, plus passively absorbing references in pop culture, but I'm still horrible at playing the game.
And FWIW, I never saw it as an especially damning indictment that he bankrupted casinos in particular. I know the logic was "How can you go wrong, the system is rigged so the house almost always wins", but that assumes you're able to get a sufficient number of customers in the door to begin with. If for some reason you fail at herding in the clientele(eg. opening a casino in an already saturated market), then it doesn't matter what percentage of the gamblers lose their money.
CNN is reporting Trump has announced he has achieved a framework for agreement over Greenland. No details yet, but it appears to be no more than an expansion of the 1951 defense agreement.
CNN is reporting Trump has announced he has achieved a framework for agreement over Greenland. No details yet, but it appears to be no more than an expansion of the 1951 defense agreement.
But still allowing him to spin it on Truth Social like he's really stickin' it to those free-loading euroweenies.
I see NATO has, at least temporarily, got Trump to lift the threat of tariffs. There talk of a golden dome, I think they maybe trying to find him a rhetorical shiny thing.
So, looks like Rutte's the new Trump-whisperer.
The theory that Trump is shaped by the last person who spoke to him remains unscathed.
Anyone who relies on his latest statement is - of course - a fool.
He is indeed. Rutte did make one fair point yesterday, which was that Greenland is important, but Ukraine is even more important. I think his number one motivation is to keep the US providing support to Kyiv.
Rutte is the toady who referred to Trump as 'Daddy' a while ago, isn't he?
Yeah, and the progressives in the Republic Of Korea gave him a replica of a real crown, presumably to flatter his monarchial pretensions. Not sure if it got them what they wanted(which probably had at least something to do with pursuing detente with the North), but if it works, it works.
To pick up on @Ruth said, Trump has most of his investments in Bonds. Yesterday, bonds started to tank in Japan, and they kept falling in Europe. By the time the American bond market opened up it was pretty dismal. Like someone pointed out, Denmark Retirement Companies had a lot of American bonds, and they were unloading them. In other words, Denmark found the Achilles heel in Trump. Hit him at the pocketbook, he's going to cave
Yes, it is interesting but it's also total bollocks. I'm sure Arctic trained Scandinavian troops could kick Russian ass if Putin invaded Finland.
Equally, US units used to fighting in warmer climes would be at disadvantage against Arctic-trained special units in Greenland but what this scenario doesn't take into account is that the US would have a stranglehold on population centres and would hardly be likely to sit idly by and allow the plucky Scandinavians to land their special units unopposed.
The US would also strike targets elsewhere either economically or militarily.
The video itself states that the prospect of US and European troops fighting it out in Greenland is highly unlikely.
It's all gung-ho speculation by someone showing off his credentials as a trainer in Arctic warfare. If push came to shove US military experts could watch videos like this and think up ways to prevent these units landing in the first place.
That’s a bit harsh, Gamaliel. Suppose NATO winter trained troops got there first? It looks perfectly possible for NATO to mount a sizeable “training exercise” at relatively short notice.
It would be interesting to know what the US military think about the prospects of invading and/or defending Greenland. There’s probably a plan and a strategic opinion somewhere but I doubt we’ll see it.
Hello fellow NATO ally! We’re so so sorry that we have an undereducated citizenry who reelected a narcissistic felon who is cosplaying as a wannabe Temu fascist.
We were hoping that his hand-me-down (HMD) Nobel Peace Prize would pacify him at least for a little while before his next nap, but his little alpha ego is so fragile that he feels the need to make a threat of war because he didn’t receive a prize for peace.
We envy your beautiful nation and your generous system of universal healthcare, and hope that this temper tantrum will pass before going to war with our allies. Maybe Melania can pay him a visit to calm him down with her affection, but that seems highly unlikely.
The majority of Americans stand with you Norway and we hope to free ourselves from the shackles of ethno-nationalist authoritarianism as soon as we get our act together.
Comments
Very prosaically we can see which leaders spoke and who sent troops.
That they oppose Trump doesn't mean that they necessarily disagree with all of his Islamophobic and ethno-nationalist views.
He said that Denmark and other European NATO powers couldn't defend Greenland because they 'can't even defend their cities from West African invasion.'
Eh?
I wish someone had asked him whether it was NATO's role to stop black people emigrating to Europe, if that's what he was referring to.
Since when has immigration been a military matter and which cities have been taken over by West Africans? Paris? Copenhagen?
The Greenlander minister they had on the programme made very salient points the Congressman failed to answer. The fact that the US could expand its military presence on Greenland without actually owning it was mentioned in the programme but I would have liked to see that point put to the Congressman.
There was also a point made that some Republicans are trying to build some intellectual justification around Trump's declarations by saying that you can only properly defend something if you own it.
Right.
So the US then has to own all the territories where it currently has military bases.
The Congressman said something about Alberta wanting to become part of the USA and how they'd be better off if they were.
Perhaps they could do a deal whereby Washington State and other parts of the US's western seaboard could become Canadian in exchange?
As for Trump's AI map of him haranguing European leaders against a backdrop of a map of all North America, including Canada, covered by the Stars and Stripes ... what the?!
Ok, the polls are showing a decline in his popularity so it could be bluster and I can't see this appealing to anyone outside the MAGA cult, but how did we get to this state where the so-called 'leader of the free world' commissions crass cartoons of himself taking over other people's sovereign territory in the name of that freedom?
It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.
It's long been an article of faith on much of the American right that Europe is being overrun by immigrants.
You used to see this years ago with people talking about 'no go' areas where 'sharia law' held sway.
There are more "sophisticated" proponents of this view like Niall Ferguson and Doug Murray, but it's essentially great replacement theory with extra steps. Trump's appeal to Austria, Italy and Hungary back in 2025 was more of the same, with the idea that Orban in particular is some kind of bulwark defending Christendom (I've seen the same messaging from the talking heads of the New Apostolic movement like Lance Wallnau).
Meanwhile, they've got Bessant as the champion of northern indigenous communities, bewailing the(admittedly pretty awful) human-rights violations visited upon the Greenlandic people by Denmark.
Kinda reminds me of the various post-9/11 wars, where the ministry of truth had eg. some of its media staffed with Christian Zionists promoting plans to flood liberated Iraq with darbyite bibles, and others staffed with New Atheists claiming the invasion would fulfill the glorious mission of Thomas Paine.
(But both the bible-thumping and liberal neo-con factions of the war party knew how to work their respective issues better than Trump and co. There probably coulda been a way for this administration to spin Denmark's human-rights record to good PR advantage on a global scale, but you'd need to get that going right from the start, rather than just have the most rando cabinet-minister bring it up outta the blue.)
Explicit orbanism was also attempting to inch its way into the hyper-nationalist, anti-American crowd on the Canadian left in the late 2010s or so. There was one amateur blogger flooding other people's message boards with red-brown hybrid theories along the lines of "Amerikan foreign policy is evil because the endless wars create refugees[ie. a point most leftists would agree with] who then flood into Europe and overrun the welfare-state and clash with the existing culture[ie. a point broadly identical to identiarian claims about the impact of migration],", presumably in the hope that the first topic would lead progressives down the rabbit hole into embracing anti-immigration theories.
He eventually outted himself as a literal orbanite, and then I think finally got banned from the forum he was leeching off of.
I find this hard to believe. If the US continues to be in tumult, I don't see why other countries would want to be super exposed to the financial risk this could pose. And it's also leverage - they could say, in essence, stop threatening us or we won't keep financing your debt.
Quote above from Business Insider here, and other discussion - https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-greenland-europe-us-asset-holdings-treasurys-shares-sell-america-2026-1?op=1.
The whole tariff strategy contains the risk of seriously damaging the dollar as the predominant reserve currency. I guess the argument has been “they wouldn’t dare”. Well of course they might. Or at least start the process of selling off to spook the markets into bear territory.
It’s not a nuclear option. Gradual responses could be very damaging to the US.
The niggling worry I have is that starting a major war is a pretty reliable way of getting a short-term poll boost. Look at Bush's approval rating when the invasion of Iraq began.
Of course, China holds even more US debt than European nations, as well as some of the European debt. A "debt war" between the US and Europe will have the effect of increasing the strength of China in our national finances.
The debt is an asset to someone else, in this case the those Treasury bonds mostly represent the aggregate savings of individuals, and you are really asking whether Europeans are willing to blow up their pensions to punish Trump (bearing in mind that there aren't many alternative savings assets out there that exist in sufficient volume, this video on de-dollarization touches on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo2BxTcVp74&t=81s )
That's before you get into possible retaliation, which could include limiting the ability of foreign banks to transact in dollars by freezing their reserve accounts thus inhibiting the ability of certain countries to trade, or putting pressure on Mastercard/Visa to stop transactions in certain regions.
Of course the damage would be massively mutual if the sell off was total. That’s not the way it would work. A significant partial sell off would illustrate the old Lasker chess dictum. “The threat is more powerful than the execution”.
The political calculation, I suppose. is whether Trump has become weak enough, and would not be strengthened by another country or trading bloc standing up for itself, threatening massive retaliation.
US self interest is probably being damaged by Trump’s erratic and illogical behaviour. At some point, enough will be enough.
Yes, I was aware of links between the US right and the likes of Yaxley-Lennon of course.
Also all the guff about 'sharia law' and 'no-go areas'.
I was surprised though, to hear this stuff aired in an interview about Greenland and NATO. Although I daresay the Congressman knew he'd been outgunned and had no leg to stand on - to mix metaphors.
So he fell back on the 'We're defending Christian civilisation' shtick.
There is common ground between US Protestant fundamentalists and the Putinista's within the Orthodox Church on these issues, of course.
The rhetoric is remarkably similar.
To which the goddess of chess replies: It's usually attributed to Nimzowitsch.
The Danes are selling the $100 million their pension fund holds in US Treasuries by the end of the month, citing "poor government finances" (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/20/akademikerpension-us-treasury-greenland-trump.html). Greenland isn't the only thing - US debt is a serious issue. US Treasury yields went through the roof yesterday, making borrowing much more expensive (https://www.investopedia.com/bond-yields-jump-as-trade-tensions-and-trump-policy-fears-resurface-11889038). @Alan Cresswell, this piece also notes that Europe is the biggest lender to the US, not China.
It looks as though 2026 will be a bumpy ride for many people, not just the beleaguered Greenlanders. Despite being under the radar lately, Ukraine (for example) battles on...
I don't think he'll ultimately use force, but I wouldn't place a large bet on that, and after looking at the phrasing, I think much of the reporting is much too straightforward in saying "Trump says he won't use force." To me it's much more ambiguous. He's backed off the threat a bit, but it's still implicit.
Don't look at stuff he says as if he were a normal world leader. Read it like he's a Mafia don. Nice big island full of resources you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
Whoops! You’re right. The version I heard named Lasker exploiting Nimzowitsch’s hatred of smoking and his use of the saying by placing an unlit cigar by the chess board while playing!
But it’s a good saying.
Or like an abusive partner: I don't want to hurt you. Don't make me hurt you.
Yes. Points taken. I think the days of regarding Trump as 'normal' are long gone...
The line that struck me as the most menacing was: "You can say yes and we'll be very appreciative, or you can so no and we will remember."
I think Trump is less economically illiterate and more just politically naive. I think John Bolton was probably WRONG in claiming that Trump doesn't understand how tariffs work(I know how they work, and unlike Trump, I never took a business course in my life), but had a highly exaggerated idea of how quick and easy he'd be able to get foreign factories moving stateside.
IOW he did know it would be Americans paying the tariffs, he just thought it wouldn't matter because the market would soon be flooded with non-tariffed goods made in all the brand-new American factories.
Well, unless he got zero on all his exams, I think he must've paid attention to something in his classes. Long-term absorption might be a different matter.
So, looks like Rutte's the new Trump-whisperer.
Technically not accurate. Trump controlled businesses have gone through six chapter 11 proceedings, but he has never declared bankruptcy himself. He emphasizes that these were strategic business moves rather than personal failures.
I didn't say he was a great businessman. I know the basics of baseball, having played it for an inglorious six months, plus passively absorbing references in pop culture, but I'm still horrible at playing the game.
And FWIW, I never saw it as an especially damning indictment that he bankrupted casinos in particular. I know the logic was "How can you go wrong, the system is rigged so the house almost always wins", but that assumes you're able to get a sufficient number of customers in the door to begin with. If for some reason you fail at herding in the clientele(eg. opening a casino in an already saturated market), then it doesn't matter what percentage of the gamblers lose their money.
But still allowing him to spin it on Truth Social like he's really stickin' it to those free-loading euroweenies.
The theory that Trump is shaped by the last person who spoke to him remains unscathed.
Anyone who relies on his latest statement is - of course - a fool.
Spot on. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.
Yeah, and the progressives in the Republic Of Korea gave him a replica of a real crown, presumably to flatter his monarchial pretensions. Not sure if it got them what they wanted(which probably had at least something to do with pursuing detente with the North), but if it works, it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMPe_e-WRMk
Yes, it is interesting but it's also total bollocks. I'm sure Arctic trained Scandinavian troops could kick Russian ass if Putin invaded Finland.
Equally, US units used to fighting in warmer climes would be at disadvantage against Arctic-trained special units in Greenland but what this scenario doesn't take into account is that the US would have a stranglehold on population centres and would hardly be likely to sit idly by and allow the plucky Scandinavians to land their special units unopposed.
The US would also strike targets elsewhere either economically or militarily.
The video itself states that the prospect of US and European troops fighting it out in Greenland is highly unlikely.
It's all gung-ho speculation by someone showing off his credentials as a trainer in Arctic warfare. If push came to shove US military experts could watch videos like this and think up ways to prevent these units landing in the first place.
It would be interesting to know what the US military think about the prospects of invading and/or defending Greenland. There’s probably a plan and a strategic opinion somewhere but I doubt we’ll see it.