What The Hell America!

DURING THE 2024 CAMPAIGN, Donald Trump bragged that he had started “no new wars” during his first term as president. But in his first two and a half months since retaking office, he has militarily threatened or economically attacked many of America’s allies. He has launched trade wars against the European Union and more than 180 countries. He talks about seizing the Panama Canal. He says he can strangle Canada’s economy and force it to become an American state.

Now Trump is going after another unlikely target: Denmark.

The war against Denmark—at this point it’s just a war of words, though Trump keeps threatening to deploy economic and perhaps military power—is over Greenland. Under a 1951 agreement, Denmark, which has sovereignty over the island, grants the United States broad leeway to operate bases and conduct military activities there. But that’s not enough for Trump. He wants the whole island.

Trump’s belligerent pursuit of this fantasy is a convergence of his pathologies. Among them:

1. He’s a narcissist. He thinks the world should serve and bow to him.

2. He’s obsessed with money. He seeks oil in Iraq, waterfront property in Gaza, and minerals in Ukraine and Greenland.

3. He sees all land as real estate. He wants Canada and Greenland not just for their wealth but for their size.

4. He’s willing to use violence. He proved that on January 6th. And he proved it again this year when he pardoned or commuted the sentences of all the convicted January 6th assailants.

But to understand Trump’s attacks on Denmark, you have to consider one more thing: his history of sexual predation. Trump notoriously boasted about grabbing women without their consent—and about not caring whether they’re attached to other people.

In a twisted way, this sheds light on his disregard for Danish sovereignty and Greenlandic autonomy. Trump’s sense of entitlement has no boundaries. He has no more compunction about taking Greenland from Denmark than he does about abusing women—even, according to some of his alleged victims, in the presence of their boyfriends or husbands.

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TRUMP FIRST MUSED ALOUD about buying Greenland in 2018. But a year later, when he discussed the idea in public, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, called it “absurd.” Trump responded by canceling a state visit to Denmark. “She blew me off,” he fumed. “You don’t talk to the United States that way, at least under me,” he said.

Five years later, Frederiksen is still in office, and Trump has returned with new resolve to break her will. On December 22, as he announced his nominee for ambassador to Denmark, Trump declared that “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” On January 7, he challenged Denmark’s legal claim to Greenland. If the Danes stood in his way, Trump warned, “I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.”

Donald Trump Jr. visited Greenland that day, signaling his father’s intentions. In a Newsmax interview, Trump Jr. accused Denmark of mistreating Greenland. When he was asked about the idea of making Greenland an American territory, he bragged about his father’s prowess: “My father understands how to wield America’s economic might. He understands how to wield America’s military might. He knows how to do these things.”

As to his father’s talk of absorbing Canada and the Panama Canal, Trump Jr. gloated that Americans were “starting to again assert their dominance—not taking a back seat to, you know, little countries that don’t have, again, our economic might.”

Two days later, President Trump claimed—contrary to the available evidence—that “the people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America.” And if Denmark “doesn’t like it,” he added ominously, “maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs.”

Frederiksen tried to appease Trump. In a phone call on January 15, she offered to work with him on American military concerns and on access to Greenland’s minerals. But she explained that the island wasn’t for sale, especially because its residents—who didn’t want to belong to Denmark or the United States, according to Greenland’s prime minister—should be allowed to choose their own future. Trump, unsatisfied, threatened her with tariffs.

On January 25, when details of the phone call became public, reporters asked Trump about Frederiksen’s response. “She told you Greenland is not for sale,” said one reporter. “Will you take no for an answer on that?” Trump made it clear that he wouldn’t. “I think we’re going to have it,” he said of Greenland. As to Denmark, he warned: “It would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen.”

Trump’s threats prompted European leaders to speak up in Denmark’s defense. “The inviolability of borders is a fundamental principle of international law,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Russia has broken this principle with its invasion of Ukraine,” Scholz noted. And in an obvious reference to Trump, he added: “This principle must apply to everyone.”

At that point, Vice President JD Vance stepped in. In a February 2 interview on Fox News, he scoffed that Trump “doesn’t care about what the Europeans scream at us. He cares about putting the interest of America’s citizens first.” Denmark was “not being a good ally,” said Vance. To protect “our own national security,” he concluded, America might “need to take more territorial interest in Greenland.”

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IN THE WEEKS SINCE THAT INTERVIEW, Trump has continued to express territorial interest. On March 13, he tried to enlist NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on America’s side of the conflict, creating a moment of intense awkwardness for the diplomat. Last week, when reporters asked Trump how far he was willing to go to get Greenland, he replied: “We’ll go as far as we have to go.” Two days later, he repeated, “We need Greenland. . . . We have to have Greenland.” To protect America’s security, he insisted, “We have no choice.”

On Friday, the United States escalated the confrontation. Vance went to Greenland and, in prepared remarks, repeatedly denounced Denmark. “Our argument,” he declared, “is not with the people of Greenland” but “with the leadership of Denmark.” He advised Greenlanders, “You’d be a lot better coming under the United States security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s security umbrella.”

Vance brushed aside a question about using American force to seize the island. If Greenlanders did the right thing—breaking away from Denmark—“we do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary,” he said. But the transition from Danish to American control “has to happen,” he concluded. “We have no other option. We need to take a significant position in Greenland.”

On Saturday, Trump reaffirmed his willingness to resort to violence. “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “There’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force,” he noted. But he added: “I don’t take anything off the table.”

TRUMP’S ONSLAUGHT HAS BAFFLED people in Greenland, Denmark, and the rest of Europe. How could an American president behave this way?

The answer is that he has behaved this way all along. But the context was different: He was a celebrity, not a president. He was abusing women, not countries.

In the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals. “She was married,” he said of one woman he targeted. But “I moved on her like a bitch.”

Several other women have recalled Trump’s indifference to their monogamous commitments. One, Stacia Robitaille, described how Trump came on to her in an elevator in Madison Square Garden, where her husband was playing for the New York Rangers. “He was aggressive & told me I was coming home with him,” she wrote. “I laughed, stating I was married to a Ranger. He guaranteed me my husband didn’t make as much money as him.”

Amy Dorris, a former model, said Trump gripped her and stuck his tongue down her throat while she was in his VIP box at a tennis tournament. She said she told him to stop, but “he didn’t care.” Nor did he care that “I was there with my boyfriend.”

Jill Harth, a pageant promoter, testified that Trump stared at her during a business meeting and asked her boyfriend, “Are you sleeping with her?” The boyfriend said yes, but Trump didn’t care. “I am going after her,” Trump allegedly told the boyfriend. The next night, according to Harth, Trump was “groping me under the table.”

This is how Trump thinks: There are no rules or boundaries. He will take what he wants. What he wants now is Greenland. And he won’t let Denmark stand in his way.