Greenland is full of people who get welfare from Denmark. The Danes are really generous to residents of Greenland, paying for much of their government services. As Fox News reports, “Greenland relies heavily on welfare from Denmark, which currently contributes around half of its annual budget, amounting to around $700 million per year.”
But for some insane reason, the Trump administration wants the U.S. to absorb Greenland, which has lots of drunk welfare recipients! Greenland has really high rates of alcohol abuse and domestic violence. It’s a cold, barren wasteland.
Fox News quotes a lying “senior White House official,” who falsely claims that “Danish leaders have spent decades mistreating the Greenlandic people, treating them like second class citizens and allowing infrastructure on the island to fall into disrepair.” Nonsense! Denmark recently helped finance three new airports in Greenland costing $800 million. It has spent billions and billions of dollars on Greenland, for little in return. And due to Denmark’s generosity, Greenland has much better infrastructure than other areas that are equally sparsely populated, like Siberia’s Sakha Republic. Denmark has been far more generous to Greenland on a per capita basis than America has been to Alaska.
This White House official’s insult aimed at America’s NATO ally, Denmark, has been widely reported in Denmark. As a result, Denmark is likely to reduce its spending on American products by billions of dollars, wiping out American jobs in industries that produce those products.
Even Fox News — which is sympathetic to the Trump administration — reports the obvious fact that “Greenland relies heavily” on Denmark, which pays for “half” of Greenland’s “annual budget.” That is the opposite of “mistreating the Greenlandic people.”
Greenland is mostly covered by ice and has fewer than 57,000 people. Most of Greenland is uninhabitable because it is covered by a massive ice sheet. Obviously, Denmark is not going to build thousands of miles of roads to serve a tiny number of people, when it is faster to travel by airplane across the vast ice sheet. Instead, Denmark has spent generously on ports and airports Greenlanders can use.
Greenlanders are coddled by Denmark’s progressive government, which subsidizes their lifestyle. It is Danish money that props up Greenlanders’ middle-class standard of living. Without Danish aid, Greenland would be poor due to its remote location and hostile and unforgiving climate, which make it almost impossible to farm or operate many kinds of industry.
Without Danish subsidies, Greenland would be poorer than Siberia, which has lots of oil, unlike Greenland, which has only minerals that are mostly too costly to extract.
The uncle of a Liberty Unyielding blogger, who took an interest in Greenland, made the mistake of going there on a trip, and discovered how little Greenland had to offer, and what drunken welfare recipients many of them are:
Jackie and I went to Greenland on the eastern part of the island. Most of the people live on the western part of the island. The part that we visited was really harsh and inhospitable. Everybody in the two towns we visited depended upon the welfare checks they got each month from the government … They would then get drunk and the kids would not go to school. My guess is that a good amount of their income also came from tourism. There had been a US Air Force radar site on the hills inland from the village where we stayed. We were only there for three days. Not much to do there, except hike in the local areas and look at the sled dogs. The dogs were not friendly. The dogs spent all their time outside in the cold.
Why does Trump want America to absorb people like that, and a wasteland like that?
Trump’s fixation with Greenland will cost the U.S. billions of dollars in export sales, because Denmark’s government will buy fewer high-tech weapons from the U.S. due to Denmark’s deteriorating relations with America as a result of Trump’s designs on Greenland.
“We must avoid American weapons if at all possible,” said the chairman of Denmark’s parliamentary defense committee. He said he regrets choosing America’s F-35 fighter aircraft for his country, citing the possibility that the U.S. may cut off support for the fighter in order to seize Greenland. “As one of the decision-makers behind Denmark’s purchase of F-35s, I regret it,” said Rasmus Jarlov, a member of parliament for Denmark’s Conservative People’s Party.
Jarlov was responding to rumors that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II may have a “kill-switch” that allows the U.S. government to remotely disable F-35s bought by U.S. allies. On March 18, the Pentagon denied that the stealth fighter has such a kill-switch.
But the Danish official was not convinced. “We obviously cannot take your word for it,” Jarlov said:
He added that the US could scupper Copenhagen’s use of the F-35 just by stopping the supply of spare parts — a similar dilemma that Ukraine faced when Washington temporarily paused military aid.
“I can easily imagine a situation where the USA will demand Greenland from Denmark and will threaten to deactivate our weapons and let Russia attack us when we refuse,” wrote Jarlov, who is also his party’s spokesperson for his stance on Greenland’s affairs….”Therefore, buying American weapons is a security risk that we cannot run. We will make enormous investments in air defense, fighter jets, artillery, and other weapons in the coming years, and we must avoid American weapons if at all possible,” he said.
“I encourage our friends and allies to do the same,” Jarlov added.
Denmark announced in 2016 that it was spending about $3 billion on 27 F-35s to replace its aging fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons. Jarlov was serving as Denmark’s defense committee chairman at the time.
85% of Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the United States.
Annexing Greenland would be a pointless waste of resources, importing a hostile population.
Greenland has minerals, but most of them aren’t worth extracting. As the Brookings Institution explains, “The conditions in Greenland are very harsh and technically demanding, and the costs of extraction high.” It could cost more to extract minerals than they are worth in many places in Greenland.
The reason there aren’t more mines in Greenland is because mineral prices aren’t high enough to justify a lot more mining in such a cold and inhospitable place. Chinese companies are happy to operate all across the world. But as the Brooking Institution notes, “Efforts to attract Chinese investment in mining projects in Greenland have so far yielded little interest and no significant investment,” “despite substantial efforts by the Greenland administration to attract them.” Because Greenland is not the most profitable place for mining companies to invest.
Greenland’s government has said that it welcomes American investment in its mineral sector. The reason there isn’t more U.S. investment in Greenland mining is because there isn’t that much easy-to-exploit mineral wealth in Greenland, not because Greenland is not part of the U.S.
All the political parties in Greenland’s parliament oppose the idea of Greenland joining the U.S.
If the U.S. takes over Greenland, it will have to spend more on our military to patrol Greenland. Denmark spends lots of money doing that now. In January, Denmark announced it “would spend 14.6 billion Danish kroner ($2.05 billion) boosting its military capabilities in the Arctic.” If the U.S. takes Greenland, it will have to spend more money on its military capabilities in the Arctic.
