Friday 16 August 2019

Hohoho Trump wants to buy Greenland

Greenland is mostly covered in ice! But Donald Trump in his wisdom fancies buying the largest island in the world from the Danes. When I first read that I thought this was a typical August story. Nothing else going on (not strictly true of course but that's what newspapers always say in August), so why not have some fun by saying the president of the United States is thinking of putting in a bid for Greenland, or perhaps Iceland or Guatemala or even the good old Dis-United Kingdom. But no, it's actually true. Greenland is an autonomous Danish territory much closer to Canada than the US. But Trump believes it could be rather useful to have the island under his wing. It's certainly in a good strategic location up near the Arctic Circle. Well stranger things have happened in the past. Like when the US signed a lease for a thin strip of Cuba in 1903 for a navy base and coal station. And, of course, the lease is still valid today. Despite Castro, Communism, the Cuban missile crisis and the longstanding hostility between Washington and Havana, briefly relieved by Obama but back to the bad old days under Trump, that south-east strip of land remains safely in American hands, well, American military hands, providing a naval base and the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp for suspect "enemy combatants" and terrorists - 40 of them at the last count. So why not Greenland? Trump has got his answer already. Greenland and its population of 56,000 don't want Trump coming anywhere near them thank you. They prefer to be aligned to Denmark. All perfectly reasonable. But then Trump is no fool. He must have known the Greenlanders wouldn't like being put up for sale. So it's pretty well a non-starter. I think it mightn't be a bad idea if Trump pays a brief visit to Greenland when he goes on a trip to Denmark in the not-too-distant future. I've never been but I can imagine he might be put off by the freeziness of it all hahaha!

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