Trump, Greenland, and Panama

What the actual fuck?

I get that Trump wants to be as cool as Vladimir Putin. I get that Trump does a lot of rambling. I get that Trump would like to be an emperor. I get that Trump is very stupid.

But why is he still talking about this?

Using military force to retake the Panama Canal and to acquire Greenland? Let’s be clear: that means killing U.S. service personnel, and killing citizens of other sovereign nations. Nations who are more or less allies.

Denmark, to whom Greenland belongs, is a member of NATO. Trump wants to attack and invade the territory of a NATO ally? I’m pretty sure there would be ramifications that go beyond combat losses.

And why?

Okay, so the Panama Canal brings in about $5 billion annually. That’s chump change. You can’t hardly muster an aircraft carrier for $5 billion. The cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars were both in excess of two trillion dollars. You’d have to collect canal fees for more than 400 years to have any hope of breaking even. Of course, this doesn’t consider the human cost, but Trump doesn’t actually care about humans.

Update: By the way, a canal is a very fragile thing. If I were a military commander in Panama, the first thing I would be doing is setting charges along the canal. The canal accounts for about 5.5% of the nation’s GDP. Such an amputation makes sense if it would deter an invasion force. Trump and the rest of the world can sail around South America.

And Greenland? It’s a giant chunk of ice in the arctic. He’s not going to sell real estate. He’s not going to build a golf course. There’s some oil. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates 17.5 billion barrels. At the current market price of $75 per barrel, that’s $1.3 trillion. Of course, that won’t go into taxpayer’s pockets. It won’t even go directly into Trump’s pockets. The oil industry will make that money, over a span of decades. If Trump personally sees a dime of it, it will be brib— … I mean, campaign donations paid in advance. Meanwhile, Greenland’s environment will be wrecked, The U.S. will be paying for yet another war, and who knows how many killed and wounded. Also, 17.5 billion barrels of oil translates to 7.5 billion metric tons of CO₂.

Is Trump’s staff going to spend the next four years undermining him? Is the Republican controlled Congress going to vote to defund two invasions?

Does the President even have the legal authority to invade an ally? He probably does. He is the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. I doubt it occurred to anyone to prevent the President from having such authority. Why would a President be so stupid? Why would we elect someone so stupid? Yet here we are.

What is Fox News saying? Oh, it’s “an amusing social media post”. Of course, Trump found the one MAGAt in Greenland to go on camera and say he wants Trump to “buy” Greenland. Of course, the prime minister of Greenland is talking about independence from Denmark. No mention of military force, but the article is a day old and doesn’t address Trump’s ramble today.

Are Fox News viewers going to convince themselves that military invasions of our allies is a good idea? Are they going to, yet again, write off their own sons and daughters serving in the military when they get killed in such a ridiculous endeavor? Are they going to invent a story that somehow justifies this nonsense?