What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

Quotation from the FT on Vance visit to Greenland

"It's cold as shit here. Nobody told me," Vance said as he had lunch on the base.

The Vice President of the United States.

This is where we are.

Apparently, he only stayed for 3hrs.

None of the locals would agree to meet him or his wife.

I don't think there are many locals up by the Space Force base.

And a three-hour visit by a VIP to a military station is pretty normal.

I had read that there was supposed to be a separate meet the locals event by the Second Lady which was canceled due to lack of participants.

I believe that was from the original "dog sledding" itinerary.  The closest locals to the base appear to be a few hundred miles away with a dirt/gravel  (or snow/ice) airstrip.

[HVC]

Trump could even lend his creepy minion a military helicopter to get around?

[Zoupa]

Trump said a few hours ago nothing is off the table, including military force, to annex Greenland.

You had a good run, America. Well, not really, but you had a go at it.

[Tamas]

Remember when Putin was going on about threatening to take Ukraine, many people thought it was just sabre rattling / 5D chess. Turns out he actually was serious about doing just that. Trump & co are doing the same thing with Greenland and ultimately Canada.

I'm convinced it was Putin himself who sold Trump on his multi-polar view of the world, and seeded the Panama, Canada and Greenland invasion ideas in the latter's mind.

Sadly that sounds not only plausible but likely as well.

[Admiral Yi]

You had a good run, America. Well, not really, but you had a go at it.

Va te faire enculer.  We had a monster run.

[crazy canuck]

Quotation from the FT on Vance visit to Greenland

"It's cold as shit here. Nobody told me," Vance said as he had lunch on the base.

The Vice President of the United States.

This is where we are.

Apparently, he only stayed for 3hrs.

None of the locals would agree to meet him or his wife.

I don't think there are many locals up by the Space Force base.

And a three-hour visit by a VIP to a military station is pretty normal.

I had read that there was supposed to be a separate meet the locals event by the Second Lady which was canceled due to lack of participants.

I believe that was from the original "dog sledding" itinerary.  The closest locals to the base appear to be a few hundred miles away with a dirt/gravel  (or snow/ice) airstrip.

After they ditched the dog sled race they tried to fund families that would meet with her for a photo op.  But nobody was willing to do that.

So it became just a quick visit to the military base.

[viper37]

I can't remember if we discussed it here.

But following the tariffs announcement, Trump exchanged a call with automotive manufacturers, warning them not to raise prices.

The Republicans want to turn America in a socialist country with price controls.  They've been trying to control interest rates for years, now they're trying price control.

We'll see how that goes.

Trump Accidentally Wrecks His Own Tariff Spin in Leaked Call Stunner

[Valmy]

It's Calvinball. Trumpism had no principles. Price controls and whatever are fine...until they aren't.

That's always been my issue with people talking about common ground with Trump Republicans. They don't really have any ground to find common cause with. Only a few true believing Republicans with ideologies, nutty ones mind you but still, you can find common ground with. Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, the populist Josh Howley those guys you can actually find common cause on some issues with because they believe in things. Every once in a while we will agree. But most of them just think...whatever the vibe du jour is. They constantly contradict themselves and they don't care.

Price controls would be an insane thing for a conservative in the US to want...but perfectly fine for a Trump Republican to want...depending on the day or week.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think it is better to assume, at this point, that the old fellow just doesn't know his arse from his elbow.

[Norgy]

At least he did not salute with a latte in his hand.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

At least he did not salute with a latte in his hand.

Or said something about eating brioches

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

People who care about the economy didn't vote for Trump.

People who care about the economy but don't understand how the economy works voted for Trump.

[Syt]

Timothy Snyder's OpEd in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/31/trump-greenland-us-morally-wrong-strategy-disastrous

Vance's posturing in Greenland was not just morally wrong. It was strategically disastrous

"No one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit of his office."
– Hans Christian Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes

Elon Musk and Donald Trump inherited a state with unprecedented power and functionality, and are taking it apart. They also inherited a set of alliances and relationships that underpinned the largest economy in world history. This too they are breaking.

The American vice-president, JD Vance, visited a US base in Greenland for three hours on Friday, along with his wife. National security adviser Mike Waltz and his wife also went along. Fresh from using an unsafe social media platform to carry out an entirely unnecessary group chat in which they leaked sensitive data about an ongoing military attack to a reporter, and thereby allegedly breaking the law, Waltz and Vance perhaps hoped to change the subject by tagging along on a trip that was initially billed as Vance's wife watching a dogsled race.

The overall context was Trump's persistent claim that America must take Greenland, which is an autonomous region of Denmark. The original plan had been that Usha Vance would visit Greenlanders, apparently on the logic that the second lady would be an effective animatrice of colonial subjection; but none of them wanted to see her, and Greenland's businesses refused to serve as a backdrop to photo ops or even to serve the uninvited Americans. So, instead, the US couples made a very quick visit to Pituffik space base. (Pete Hegseth, another group chatter, stayed home; but his wife was in the news as well, as an unorthodox participant in sensitive military discussions.)

At the base, in the far north of the island, the US visitors had pictures taken of themselves and ate lunch with servicemen and women. They treated the base as the backdrop to a press conference where they could say things they already thought; nothing was experienced, nothing was learned, nothing sensible was said. Vance, who never left the base, and has never before visited Greenland, was quite sure how Greenlanders should live. He made a political appeal to Greenlanders, none of whom was present, or anywhere near him. He claimed that Denmark was not protecting the security of Greenlanders in the Arctic, and that the US would. Greenland should therefore join the US.

It takes some patience to unwind all of the nonsense here.

The base at Pituffik (formerly Thule) only exists because Denmark permitted the US to build it at a sensitive time. It has served for decades as a central part of the US's nuclear armoury and then as an early-warning system against Soviet and then Russian nuclear attack.

When Vance says that Denmark is not protecting Greenland and the base, he is wishing away generations of cooperation, as well as the Nato alliance itself. Denmark was a founding member of Nato, and it is already the US's job to defend Denmark and Greenland, just as it is Denmark's job (as with other members) to defend them in return.

Americans might chuckle at that idea, but such arrogance is unwarranted. We are the only ones ever to have invoked article 5, the mutual defence obligation of the Nato treaty, after 9/11; and our European allies did respond. Per capita, almost as many Danish soldiers were killed in the Afghan war as were American soldiers. Do we remember them? Thank them?

The threat in the Arctic invoked by Vance is Russia; and of course defending against a Russian attack is the Nato mission. But right now the US is supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine. No one is doing more to contain the Russian threat than Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine is in effect fulfilling the entire Nato mission, right now, by absorbing a huge Russian attack. But Vance opposes helping Ukraine, spreads Russian propaganda about Ukraine, and is best known for yelling at Ukraine's president in the Oval Office. On the base, Vance blamed the killing in Ukraine on Joe Biden rather than on Vladimir Putin, which is grotesque. Vance claimed that there is now an energy ceasefire in place between Russia and Ukraine; in fact, Russia violated it immediately. Russia is now preparing a massive spring offensive against Ukraine; the response of Musk-Trump has been to ignore this larger reality completely while allowing Biden-era aid to Ukraine to come to an end. Denmark, meanwhile, has given four times as much aid to Ukraine, per capita, as the US.

Greenland, Denmark and the US have been enmeshed in complex and effective security arrangements, touching on the gravest scenarios, for the better part of a century. Arctic security, an issue discovered by Trump and Vance very recently, was a preoccuption for decades during and after the cold war. There are fewer than 200 Americans at Pituffik now, where once there were 10,000; there is only that one US base on the island where once there were a dozen; but that is American policy, not Denmark's fault.

We really do have a problem taking responsibility. The US has fallen well behind its allies and its rivals in the Arctic, in part because members of Vance's political party denied for decades the reality of global warming, which has made it hard for the US navy to persuade Congress of the need to commission icebreaker ships. The US only has two functional Arctic icebreakers; the Biden administration was intending to cooperate with Canada, which has some, and with Finland, which builds lots, in order to compete with Russia, which has the most. That common plan would have allowed the US to surpass Russia in icebreaking capacity. This is one of countless examples of how cooperation with Nato allies benefits the US. It is not clear what will happen with that arrangement now that Trump and Vance define Canada, like Denmark, as a rival or even as an enemy. Presumably it will break down, leaving Russia dominant.

As with everything Musk-Trump does, however, the cui bono question about imperialism in Greenland is easy to answer: Russia benefits. Putin cannot contain his delight with US imperialism over Greenland. In generating artificial crises in relations with both Denmark and Canada, America's two closest allies these last 80 years, the Trump people cut America loose from security gains and create a chaos in which Russia benefits.

The American imperialism directed towards Denmark and Canada is not just morally wrong. It is strategically disastrous. The US has nothing to gain from it, and much to lose. There is nothing that Americans cannot get from Denmark or Canada through alliance. The very existence of the base at Pituffik shows that. Within the atmosphere of friendship that has prevailed the last 80 years, all of the mineral resources of Canada and Greenland can be traded for on good terms, or for that matter explored by American companies. The only way to put all of this easy access in doubt was to follow the course that Musk-Trump have chosen: trade wars with Canada and Europe, and the threat of actual wars and annexations. Musk and Trump are creating the bloodily moronic situation in which the US will have to fight wars to get the things that, just a few weeks ago, were there for the asking. And, of course, wars rarely turn out the way one expects.

Much effort is spent trying to extract a doctrine from all this. But there is none. It is just senselessness that benefits America's enemies. Hans Christian Andersen told the unforgettable tale of the naked emperor. In Greenland, what we saw was American imperialism with no clothes. Naked and vain.

As a parting shot, Vance told Greenlanders that life with the US would be better than with Denmark. Danish officials have been too diplomatic to answer directly the insults directed at them from their own territory during an uninvited visit by imperialist hotheads. Let me though just note a few possible replies, off the top of my head. The comparison between life in the US and life in Denmark is not just polemical. Musk-Trump treat Europe as though it were some decadent abyss, and propose that alliances with dictatorships would somehow be better. But Europe is not only home to our traditional allies; it is an enviable zone of democracy, wealth and prosperity with which it benefits us to have good relations, and from which we can sometimes learn.

So consider. The US is 24th in the world in the happiness rankings. Not bad. But Denmark is No 2 (after Finland). On a scale of 1 to 100, Freedom House ranks Denmark 97 and the US 84 on freedom – and the US will drop a great deal this year. An American is about 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than a Dane. Danes have access to universal and essentially free healthcare; Americans spend a huge amount of money to be sick more often and to be treated worse when they are. Danes on average live four years longer than Americans. In Denmark, university education is free; the average balance owed by the tens of millions of Americans who hold student debt in the US is about $40,000. Danish parents share a year of paid parental leave. In the US, one parent might get 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Denmark has children's story writer Hans Christian Andersen. The US has children's story writer JD Vance. American children are about twice as likely as Danish children to die before the age of five.

[The Brain]

People who care about the economy didn't vote for Trump.

People who care about the economy but don't understand how the economy works voted for Trump.

You are what you do.

[Barrister]

Trump said a few hours ago nothing is off the table, including military force, to annex Greenland.

So I don't know what to make of those kind of statements.

I mean - it's typical Trump.  He never "takes things off the table".  He figures it gives him more room to maneuver or something and doesn't care how it might offend people.

But he certainly is willing to break a crap-ton of norms also, so I certainly wouldn't rule it out as Trump just mouthing off.