The US Has Greenland (and Foreign Policy) Exactly Upside Down
The good news: America has a close ally in Denmark to keep the Arctic safe from Russia and China. The bad: The US is turning that friend into a foe.
The Vances and Colonel Meyers, before her “subversion.”
Photographer: Jim Watson via Getty Images
If you’re sitting in Copenhagen or Nuuk and looking for bespoke lessons from the trade war that Donald Trump just declared on the world, here are two. First, what this American president signals, he also carries out. Second, it does not matter whether the object of his fixation is obviously self-defeating or nonsensical; he’ll press on regardless, just because. Put both insights together, and you may conclude that when Trump says he’ll “get” Greenland from Denmark — “100%,” with or without force — he will try.
Among the latest indicators is the firing of Colonel Susannah Meyers. She commanded the Pituffik Space Base (formerly named Thule Air Base), an American outpost in Greenland that monitors the Arctic skies for incoming enemy missiles. At first blush, Meyers might seem to be just one more victim in the ongoing purge of national-security and military officials deemed disloyal to Trump or suspiciously woke. In this case, though, the Pentagon specified that actions “to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated.”