Researcher compares Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin – “Greenland is an important and sensitive diplomatic issue”

Former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, think tank European Council is the vice president of Foreign Relations Carl Bildt describes the US president who will take office on Monday Donald Trump’s fresh threats to Greenland to shock.

He says he considers the proposal “not only absurd, but dangerous”.

“Greenland is an important and sensitive diplomatic issue. Its position must be handled with care and compassion, lest a much larger crisis arise. It wouldn’t serve anyone’s interests,” he writes Project Syndicatessa.

Bildt emphasizes that although Greenland is not part of the European Union, its people are Danish citizens. More than half of the island’s public budget is covered by the Danish government, and 90 percent of its exports go to the EU.

Bildt also estimates that although Russia and China also have regional and economic goals in the Arctic region, the military threats to Greenland are minimal.

At the same time, he reminds us that according to the 1951 agreement, the United States already has the right to establish military facilities in Greenland.

“As long as the US military listens to the authorities in Denmark and Greenland, it can do more or less what it wants on the island.”

Bildt also admits that Greenland has large reserves of rare earth minerals, which are used in many high-tech products.

“The investment climate for the utilization of these resources is far from ideal, considering the new political uncertainty on the island, the lack of labor and the sensitive natural environment. In fact, Greenland and the rest of the Arctic are warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this means economic, social and political fragility. This is a very big reason to manage Greenland’s slow journey towards more autonomy – and perhaps eventually independence – carefully, not by bombing and bullying.”

Like Putin and Lavrov

Award-winning historian and researcher Anne Applebaum says in his own article The Atlanticissa that he was in Copenhagen just a day after Trump spoke on the phone with the Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksenin with last wednesday.

“In private conversations, the adjective most often used to describe Trump’s phone call was rough. The most frequently used verb was threat. The most often expressed reaction was confusion,” he says about the Danes’ reactions.

Applebaum himself analyzes that the most difficult aspect of the resulting crisis is not the need to prepare for an undefined threat from a close ally, but the need to survive the sudden sense of absurdity.

“Actually, Trump’s demands are illogical. Everything that the United States could theoretically want to do in Greenland is already possible right now. Denmark has never prevented the US military from building bases, prospecting for minerals or stationing troops in Greenland or patrolling nearby sea lanes. In the past, the Danes have even allowed the Americans to defy Denmark’s policy in Greenland,” he reminds.

Applebaum directly compares Trump to the Russian president Vladimir Putin and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrovin.

“Trump shares his views [Venäjän] with the imperialists. Lavrov has also spoken about the similarity between the United States’ ambitions in Greenland and Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine. Lavrov has even suggested that a forced referendum similar to the one in Russia’s Crimea and Eastern Ukraine be held in Greenland.”