Trump World

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It’s entirely possible that what I’m about to describe was Donald Trump’s PR plan all along. If so, bravo!

I tip my hat, because the Trump administration is just one move away from the greatest PR victory in modern political history. No hyperbole: He’s on the verge of exposing liberal Europe as greedy, freeriding hypocrites; humiliating too-big-for-its-britches Canada; and — even more importantly — possibly securing something that’s at the top of the “America First” agenda: a real, authentic European military deterrence that doesn’t rely on American blood and treasure.

This isn’t some far-flung PR plan that relies on future events: President Trump could do it at his very next press conference. Everything’s set up perfectly!

It all involves Greenland.

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Donald Trump said the United States will gain “total access” to Greenland under a developing arrangement with NATO allies, declaring that the deal would give Washington sweeping military reach over the strategically vital territory.

The president also said part of America’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system would be built in Greenland.

“Essentially, it’s total access,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday during an interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “There’s no end, there’s no time limit.”

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President Donald Trump has announced that he’s reached a preliminary framework agreement with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte regarding Greenland, a development he said will pause a looming round of punitive tariffs on European nations.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the discussions produced a framework for a future deal covering Greenland and the broader Arctic region.

The development prompted the president to cancel tariffs that were set to take effect on February 1.

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — For days it seemed there was no way out of the latest standoff between Europe and the United States: U.S. President Donald Trump insisted he must have Greenland — and would settle for nothing short of total ownership.

Even after he dropped the threat of force in a speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, the impasse remained. Enter: Mark Rutte.

The NATO secretary-general appears to have been instrumental in persuading Trump to scrap the threat of slapping punitive tariffs on eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland — a stunning reversal shortly after insisting he wanted to get the island “including right, title and ownership.”

A United Nations initiate designed to give administrative flesh to President Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan is feared to become its replacement. What started as a board of invested actors to help manage the transition in Gaza from Hamas to something else is now taking on a global scope as mission creep has taken hold at an ecumenical scale. Trump said of the board that it would “get a lot of work done that the UN should have done.”

Maya Ungar, a UN analyst, is sounding the alarm, claiming, “If member states, if countries do decide to sign up – and not just to sign up, but to really institutionalise and move along with this Board of Peace process – it is going to become a parallel or competing structure to the UN Security Council, which is an institution that has already been facing immense legitimacy as well as financial concerns over the past few years.”

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The Board of Peace was initially given a limited mandate by the UN Security Council last November, endorsed strictly as a mechanism to support the peace process in Gaza.

But recent developments suggest the project is rapidly expanding beyond that scope. Its draft charter reportedly makes no mention of Gaza at all.

Instead, the body is described as an organisation designed to “secure peace” in regions threatened by conflict – a remit strikingly similar to that of the UN Security Council.

Maya Ungar, a UN analyst at the Intern

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German troops have quietly packed up and left Greenland, just two days after arriving for a highly publicized NATO exercise meant to signal support for Denmark as President Donald Trump renews pressure over the strategic Arctic island.

The abrupt departure raised eyebrows in Greenland’s capital of Nuuk, where residents watched uniformed German soldiers board a commercial Icelandair flight rather than a military aircraft.

Once onboard, roughly half of the small contingent reportedly took seats in business class.

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U.S. President Donald Trump is addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the world watching closely after his threats of annexing Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

The speech — being streamed live in this post — comes a day after world leaders and historic allies of the U.S. repudiated Trump’s threats to annex the island, and after Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a major foreign policy speech to the same venue in which he said that “the old order is not coming back.”

On Saturday, Trump said he would impose a 10 per cent import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations because of their opposition to an American seizure of Greenland, which Trump has not ruled out seizing by force and argues the U.S. needs for “national security.”

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Tuesday on MS NOW’s “The Beat,” former White House special counsel Ty Cobb claimed President Donald Trump had “dementia.”

Cobb said, “I suspect one of the key guardrails this week, where I hope there is vigorous debate is with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military over what Trump intends to do in Greenland. You know, today, he said he wouldn’t take, force off the table. They asked him how far he was prepared to go. He said, you’ll find out. You know, those are not the comments of a rational human being and certainly not presidential at all. Likewise yesterday you had the clearly deranged, demented and insane note that he sent to the to the leaders of Norway saying that because Norway, which has no control over the Nobel Peace Prize, hadn’t given it to him that he was free to disregard peace and very interested in Greenland. You know, I don’t think there’s anybody outside of the United States who believes that Trump is sane.”

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called President Trump’s threat to hit eight of America’s NATO allies with tariffs over their stance on Greenland a “mistake” on Tuesday. Speaking at the opening of the Davos economic conference in Switzerland, Von der Leyen said Mr. Trump’s threat risked plunging Europe’s relations with the U.S. into a “downward spiral.”

“When it comes to the security of the Arctic region, Europe is fully committed and we share the objectives of the United States,” von der Leyen said, highlighting as an example a move by Finland, NATO’s newest member, to sell ice breakers to the U.S.

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Trump’s Greenland obsession didn’t emerge from nowhere. Behind the rhetoric sits a constellation of tech billionaires eyeing the island’s mineral wealth and regulatory vacuum, ZNetwork reports.

KoBold Metals, an AI-powered mining company backed by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman, raised $537 million in early 2025 to hunt for copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium — minerals critical for AI data centers and batteries. — Read the rest

The post Behind Trump’s Greenland obsession: tech billionaire mineral hunger appeared first on Boing Boing.

Blurb:

Danish politician Anders Vistisen was reprimanded after telling U.S. President Donald Trump to “f–k off” — again — during a European Parliament floor speech amid the president’s constant threats to take over Greenland.

Vistisen, 38, addressed Trump, 79, during a speech to the European Union’s legislative body, saying, “Dear President Trump, listen very carefully. Greenland has been part of the Danish kingdom for 800 years. It is an integrated country. It is not for sale.”

“Let me put this in words you might understand: Mr. President, f–k off,” he added.

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Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation to join US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

A statement from his office said Netanyahu would become a member of the board “which is to be comprised of world leaders”.

The board was originally thought to be aimed at helping end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction. But its proposed charter does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to supplant functions of the UN.

Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have also agreed to join, as have Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Turkey and Vietnam.

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Watch: BBC asks if breakup of Nato is price Trump willing to pay for Greenland

US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his threats to take control of Greenland, saying there is “no going back”.

Asked at a news conference how far he was willing to go to acquire the semi-autonomous Danish territory, he replied: “You’ll find out.”

It comes after French President Emmanuel Macron warned of a “shift towards a world without rules”, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the “old order is not coming back”.

Blurb:

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Friday that he may punish countries with tariffs if they don’t back the U.S. controlling Greenland, a message that came as a bipartisan Congressional delegation sought to lower tensions in the Danish capital.

Trump for months has insisted that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said earlier this week that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”

During an unrelated event at the White House about rural health care, he recounted Friday how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals.

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The delegation’s visit follows a meeting in Washington on Wednesday at which Danish representatives said Copenhagen and Washington were in “fundamental disagreement” over the future of Greenland.

In Greenland’s capital Nuuk, residents welcomed the show of support.

“(US) Congress would never approve of a military action in Greenland. It’s just one idiot speaking,” a 39-year-old union representative told AFP.

“If he does it, he’ll get impeached or kicked out. If people in Congress want to save their own democracy, they have to step up,” said the union rep, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Blurb:

NUUK, Greenland — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.

The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark’s foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “fundamental disagreement” remains with Trump over the island.

The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and “people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.

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Canada is moving to step up its position in the Arctic, announcing plans to open new consulates in Greenland and Anchorage, Alaska, as tensions grow over the strategic region and US President Donald Trump continues floating the idea of taking control of Greenland.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada will open a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, next month. The move had been in the works before Trump’s latest comments, but it now comes as global attention has become focused on the Arctic, reports Bloomberg. Ottawa also plans to open a consulate in Anchorage, though Anand said there’s no timeline yet for when that will happen.

Blurb:

British officials went to bed on Monday thinking they had averted a crisis. They woke up in the middle of an even deeper row over Greenland, tiny specks of rock in the Indian Ocean, and whether they should deploy their ultimate Trump card: King Charles.

Once again, President Donald Trump had upended everything with an early-hours Truth Social post.

It was all so different on Monday evening, when Secrets was chatting with sources. Crisis, the Brits believed, had been averted by the rational application of cool heads and a dose of logic.

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While the Canadians have reportedly been weighing whether or not to send additional troops to aid in the “defense” of Greenland, they just got wrecked by the U.S. in their national pass time.

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President Donald Trump on Saturday announced new tariffs on goods from eight European countries as part of an effort to secure U.S. acquisition of Greenland, which is currently a territory of Denmark.

Greenland, the world’s largest island, is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. It holds strategic importance due to its Arctic location, natural resources, and role in missile defense systems.

The U.S. has maintained a military presence there since World War II, including at Thule Air Base. Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland dates back to 2019, but the issue resurfaced in early 2025 with initial threats of tariffs if Denmark did not relinquish control.

Blurb:

Some Republican senators are increasingly voicing opposition to President Trump’s remarks suggesting the United States could take control of Greenland by force, as a bipartisan group of lawmakers prepares to visit Denmark to reassure its leaders that Congress would not support any military action targeting the territory.

As the Hill reported, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) are among several U.S. lawmakers scheduled to travel to Copenhagen on Friday, alongside Democratic colleagues Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Dick Durbin (D-IL), as well as Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), and Sara Jacobs (D-CA). 

Tillis emphasized that he will remind Danish officials that Congress is a coequal branch of government, and said he believes “there [is a] sufficient number of members, whether they speak up or not, that are concerned with this.” Speaking about any use of military force to take Greenland, he stated, “The actual execution of anything that would involve a taking of a sovereign territory that is part of a sovereign nation, I think would be met with pretty substantial opposition in Congress.”

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Turning to the Greenland crisis, EC president Ursula von der Leyen declares that “tariffs are a mistake, particularly between long-term allies”.

She reminds Davos that the US and Europe reached a trade deal last year.

In a nod to President Trump, as he jets towards Davos, von der Leyen says:

In politics as in business, a deal is a deal.

And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.

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FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron has launched a veiled attack on Donald Trump and said that we are now shifting to a world “without rules”.

The European leader blasted his US counterpart’s tariff threats – saying they “don’t make sense” and calling them an attempt to “subordinate” the continent.

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the annual World Economic Forum in Davos on TuesdayCredit: AP
Macron said we are ‘shifting to a world without rules’Credit: AFP

Donning a pair of aviator shades at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, Macron took several hidden jabs at Trump in the face of the Greenland row.

Blurb:

As sea temperatures and geopolitical tensions simultaneously heat up, Greenland’s strategic importance increases. Against this backdrop, the specter of American territorial expansion has emerged as a new factor that is complicating Arctic security.

The evolving security environment in the Arctic necessitates deeper American involvement in the region. Specifically, the United States needs to enhance its military presence in Greenland by improving regional air and missile defenses. Future developments could call for other actions, such as reopening closed bases and deploying more troops to Greenland.