We really shouldn’t buy Greenland, either.

JIM LEWIS

Feeling his imperialist oats after having kidnapped a head of state so that he could take the country’s natural resources, Trump has once again turned his attention to Greenland, a large ice sheet controlled by the Kingdom of Denmark that Trump wants to annex because it looks really big on a distorted map. Trump reiterated early in the week that “we need Greenland” and his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, observed that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option” that Trump could use to secure it. Our good friend Stephen Miller, meanwhile, gave a characteristically unhinged interview, saying that the U.S. has a right to take Greenland because “we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” Buddy, this is CNN, not an Xbox headset.

At least there’s been reasonable pushback, with European leaders formally condemning the saber-rattling and observing that an attack on Greenland would mean the end of NATO (perhaps a feature, for elements of Trump’s administration). Senate Republicans, by Senate Republican standards, have also been forceful in their rejection of the idea. One possible defense of what Trump’s doing, though, is making threats as a means of getting Denmark to put Greenland up for sale. Can we observe, before the savvy negotiator spin takes hold, that purchasing Greenland would also be absurd? It could cost in the trillions at a time when the federal budget is calamitous, higher interest rates and inflation have returned, and there are better things—really, anything else—to spend trillions of dollars on. There are real national security interests and economic interests involved in Greenland. The way to manage that is not to conquer the island but to reach an agreement with Denmark, which was our friend up until about 10 minutes ago.

THE SURGE