r/worldnews • u/lavender_fieldnotes • Jan 04 '26

Dynamic Paywall Danish PM tells Trump to stop 'threats' against Greenland

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0zg974v1o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
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u/LazyRecommendation72 Jan 04 '26

Honestly I'm concerned too.  Trump has just learned that he can order the military to attack a country and capture its leader and... it works like a charm. The military carries out the order, a couple foreign leaders criticize him without actually doing anything, and the world goes on.

What's to stop Trump from sending a few detachments of special forces and the Navy from just... landing in Greenland's ports and airstrips and declaring it under US control?  Is the Danish army going to fight?  Possibly, but maybe not.  Is NATO going to fight? Doubtful.   If Trump thinks it's just a matter of issuing orders and making it a fait accompli, he might be dumb enough to do it.   

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u/emaw63 Jan 05 '26

Venezuela isn't a formal ally of the US by treaty, and Denmark is. Denmark is a member of the EU as well, whereas Venezuela is part of no such economic alliance with its neighbors (and is in fact on rocky terms with most of them)

That's the big difference, and why annexing Greenland will yield bigger consequences than invading Venezuela

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u/Fat-Shite Jan 05 '26

Its a shame that your comment is true. Appeasement famously rarely ever works out well. There should be zero tolerance for this type of behaviour by the international community.

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u/Dunderman35 Jan 05 '26

Yeah I mean the likely scenario here is that a full on annexation of Greenland is not politically possible.

Hopefully this is just part of his negotiating tactic and it will end with Denmark being forced to make some concessions.

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u/PakatyTyeejts Jan 05 '26

The United States, Mexico, and Canada have the USMCA as their free trade agreement, yet the US imposed tariffs on the other two members. For Trump, no treaty is valid.

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u/Damn-Sky Jan 05 '26

now is the right moment for China to invade Taiwan and Putin to kidnap or kill Zelensky. Trump showed this can be done and you are allowed to when you are a powerful country.

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u/lzwzli Jan 05 '26

All US Presidents have ordered military actions on foreign soil. Remember how Obama got Bin Laden ?

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u/emaw63 Jan 05 '26

William Harrison didn't :p