The Don Jones Index

the DON JONES INDEX…
	GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 1/23/26… 16,012.06 1/16/26… 16,034.90 6/27/13... 15,000.00
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 1/23/26... 49,384.01; 1/16/26... 49,442.44; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

LESSON for JANUARY 23rd, 2026 – “NUUK CLEAR WAR?”

Whereas the advocates of invasion claim that Denmark owns Greenland only because they sent a boat over there... well... that’s sort of the way that America got started with colonists disembarking from the Mayflower to claim the country. The Indians (or Native Americans) of the time and place came to Thanksgiving dinner with them as opposed to poking arrows through their brains... bad mistake.

That was four hundred years and change ago, but the Danish boat that conquered and claimed Greenland was a Viking vessel captained by Erik the Red, six hundred years before that (according to Arizona State University geography professor Randall Cerveny’s book on Iceland)... a tropic paradise compared to the icy, snowy Greenland.

The name itself was Erik’s merching masterpiece, inasmuch as the Icelandic Sagas c. 1200 AD (give or take a century) in which it is written that the Icelandic discoverer of Greenland, Erik the Red, “left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name." (USA Today, Jan. 17^th, ATTACHMENT ONE)

While Erik the Red selected the name in hopes that it would attract more people to the icy island, USA Today’s Doyle Rice holds that the island is actually getting (a little) more green as its ice sheet melts. In fact, it was also greenish during the “Medieval Warm Period” (around 900-1300 AD) when Vikings settled there.

But even at the height of the Medieval Warm Period, Mr. Rice proffered, “the vast majority of Greenland was still ice-covered, as much as 80%.”

Today, however, Jonathan Carrivick, an Earth scientist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, contends that “parts of Greenland are becoming green again for the first time since the Vikings visited nearly 1,000 years ago,” (although the American ambition to take the territory has less to do with its agricultural potential than... other factors... as explained below.

Another Icelandic Saga declares that the name of Iceland originated from Flóki Vilgerðarson, the first Viking to intentionally travel and stay on Iceland around 850 AD.

"According to one of the Sagas, Flóki coined the name, after a long, harsh winter camp there, when he climbed a mountain, and saw a huge, icy-filled fjord and named the island accordingly," Cerveny told USA TODAY, even though it is Greenland which is the colder of the two... once setting a Northern Hemispheric record of “an unimaginably cold 93.3 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.”

Perhaps President Trump may have been tricked by the apparent size of the island as drawn on standard Mercator maps because the polar stretching makes it seem larger than it is... almost the size of Africa.

Be that as it may, during the darkest days of World War Two U.S. forces built bases, guarded resource mines, and waged a covert campaign against German weather stations along Greenland’s coast.

With Denmark under German occupation, the country’s ambassador in Washington, Henrik Kauffmann, refused to take orders from a government controlled by Berlin. Acting on his own, he approached the Roosevelt administration and signed the “Agreement Relating to the Defense of Greenland” on April 9, 1941. The pact allowed the United States to station troops, build bases, and operate freely across the island for the duration of the occupation.

Kauffmann later explained his defiance in a letter preserved by the U.S. State Department, writing, “Under the circumstances, there was, to me, no doubt but that I must, in the interests of Denmark and Greenland, take this unusual step… according to my best belief and the dictates of my conscience.” His decision gave Washington legal cover to occupy Greenland even before America formally entered the war. This prevented German troops from quickly occupying the island after Denmark’s collapse. (Military.com, Oct. 13, 2025: ATTACHMENT TWO)

Anticipating present day rare earth stalkings, Greenland’s strategic importance wasn’t just its geography. “Beneath its ice sheets was one of the Allies’ most valuable resources: cryolite, a mineral mined near Ivigtut that was essential to aluminum production. Without cryolite, large-scale aircraft manufacturing would have been impossible. Protecting the mine became an early American priority, and Coast Guard cutters soon patrolled its approaches to keep German submarines and raiders away.”

Americans and allies like the U.K., with Danes, Norwegians, and Greenlanders… traveling in dog-sleds… battled Germans throughout the territory from before Pearl Harbor (when the USCG cutter Northland seized the Norwegian sealer Buskø, a ship suspected of supporting a German radio team) through In October 1944, USCGS Eastwind seized the German weather station on Little Koldewey and took twelve German prisoners. Eleven days later, she boarded and captured the trawler Externsteine, taking seventeen more prisoners and ending Germany’s weather operations on the coast.

By the time Germany surrendered in 1945, “the United States had built 17 installations across Greenland, from weather stations and supply depots to full airfields. Although the skirmishes were brief and minor, several casualties occurred on both sides, in addition to the horrid conditions troops faced on the island.” Several U.S. bases remained active through the Cold War, such as Thule Air Base, still one of America’s northernmost military bases. “The island’s wartime experiences also set the stage for later debates over the its value.”

Future Greenland is likely to become even more desireable than present Greenland as a consequence of climate change.

While Mr. Trump says the U.S. needs to control the vast, largely frozen island “for security reasons, accusing China and Russia of trying to take it over” Tucker Reals of CBS attributes its attraction to not only security, nor the oil, natural gas and rare earth minerals coveted by billionaires... “the physical location of the island on the map — and the sea ice melting around its borders — is also of vital importance,” (January 13, 2026, ATTACHMENT THREE) because the melt has created more opportunity to use northern shipping routes — “allowing logistics companies to save millions of dollars in fuel by taking much shorter paths between Asia and Western Europe and the United States. Northern routes were long only passable in warmer months.”

As what is called the Northwest Passage opens wider, the traditional nautical route from East Asia is to go south through Egypt's Suez Canal, is about 3,000 miles longer is being replaced; allowing shippers to save “as much as 50% in costs, considering fuel and other expenses, by reducing the distance from Japan to Europe, for instance, to only about 10 days compared to the roughly 22 it would take to sail around the southern tip of Africa and then through the Suez Canal”, according to the Arctic Institute, while the Middlebury Institute of International Studies contends that using the northern route “would shave about 10 days of a similar journey from Shanghai, China, to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.”

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) produced charts, graphs and maps that predict by 2059, given global warming at present levels, “it will likely be possible for a polar-class vessel to sail the most direct route, right across the North Pole, as the formation of sea ice reduces further.”

See maps here

Analysts, psychologists and conspiracy theorists have batted around various explanations of Green Fever (as below) during the progression from concept to demand, to tariffs... even war with our seemingly former NATO allies.

While the prospect of an American takeover has risen and fallen for centuries, former Trump adviser John Bolton (the “mustache man”) singled out the whim of one American businessman... Ronald Lauder, heir to the cosmetics empire and Trump donor... in persuading Trump 1.0 to snatch up Greenland (actually, just buy it) back in 2018 because Lauder – already in a deep dive into coveting Ukrainian minerals – was convinced that there was even more money to be nudged from Nuuk.

“Trump’s Greenland concept was never absurd – it was strategic,” Lauder wrote in the New York Post. He went on: “Beneath its ice and rock lies a treasure trove of rare-earth elements essential for AI, advanced weaponry and modern technology. As ice recedes, new maritime routes are emerging, reshaping global trade and security.” (Guardian U.K. Jan, 15: ATTACHMENT FOUR)

Since Lauder steered Trump’s attention to Greenland in 2018, as first reported by the US journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book “The Divider”, the cosmetics billionaire “seems to have ploughed lots of his own money into the Arctic territory.” GUK reporter Tom Burgis researched Trump company ventures including “luxury” springwater from an island in Baffin Bay, generating “hydroelectric power from Greenland’s biggest lake for an aluminium smelter” and teaming up with Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric to push through a Ukrainian lithium deal with the Trump family.

The Presidently subsequently broke with Bolton and now wants to execute or, at least, jail him for treason and, temporarily, with Lauder in 2022 after Djonald UnKosher “hosted the far-right agitator Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago club. Lauder, who heads the World Jewish Congress, joined the condemnation. “Nick Fuentes is a virulent antisemite and Holocaust denier plain and simple,” he said. “It is inconceivable that anyone would associate with him.”

But, as money trumps swastikas with Trump, Lauder resumed financial support last year. “In March 2025 he gave $5m to Maga Inc, a fundraising operation for Trump’s movement. The following month, Lauder was reportedly among the guests at an exclusive candlelit dinner with the president. Tickets were $1m each, payable to Maga Inc.”

The liberal Guardian U.K,’s litany of takeaways on the Trump 2.0 timeline for Thursday and Friday last week include coverage of a White House rally to support the prospect of tariffing unfriendly Euros (thereafter imposed, tho’ at least as an alternative to war), in which he introduced his “special envoy” – Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who said that the President was “serious” about taking Nuuk by hook, by crook or by the book (being, of course, “The Art of the Deal” while a delegation of eleven Congressthings (including Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis) flew off to Copenhagen to meet Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the leaders of Denmark and Greenland, and Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland, former Rep. Billy Long, “reportedly joked that the Nordic country should become the fifty second US state.” (ATTACHMENT FIVE)

The President’s pivots and sugarplum dreams have become so strange that Icelanders feared Long’s statement was policy and promise, not prank, and a quickly circulated petition to Iceland’s foreign minister, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir drew 3,200 signatures advising Trump to appoint someone else while Greenlanders disinvited the still-serving Gov. Landry to their dogsled races.

“These words, spoken by Billy Long, whom Donald Trump has nominated as ambassador to Iceland, may have been said in jest,” the petition allowed... still, they are offensive to Iceland and the Icelandic people, who have had to fight for their freedom and have always been a friend to the United States.”

Back in Washington, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said that the formal position of the Trump administration is that “Greenland should be part of the United States.”

“Nobody’s gonna fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Miller said on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” (CNN, ATTACHMENT SIX)

Nielsen called the proposal “disrespectful” while Frederiksen warned that there would be consequences should the US try to seize Greenland, saying in televised remarks that “if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II.”

Other critics, foreign and domestic, dismissed the “security” issue with USA Today (Jan. 15^th, ATTACHMENT SEVEN) reporting that the Pituffik Space Base was being overhauled to enhance the warfighting capabilities of its 150 military personnel – plus “hundreds of Canadian, Danish and Greenlandic military and contractors.”

The former Thule AFB, which woke old Joe renamed in 2024 to pay homage to the native Greenlandic people and culture, is on the island's western edge, close to Canada's Baffin Bay area, and about 1,000 miles from the island's capital of Nuuk, and dates back to the Cold War Project Iceworm, “which would have secretly buried nuclear missile silos beneath the Greenland ice sheet. The effort was abandoned, USA Today disclosed, “after scientists discovered the ice sheets moved faster than expected.”

CONQUEST?... or DISTRACTION?

Fingering some of Djonald UnCanined’s odd fixations, “both as a person and as a president”, the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols fixated on his tunnel vision on things he wants: “the demolishing of the White House’s East Wing, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. (Jan. 14, ATTACHMENT EIGHT) Many of Trump’s quirks are harmless, if unpleasant (h)e seems to hate dogs, for example, but no one is forcing him to adopt one” – but others Tommy Boy terms “destructive”... Donny Boy’s tariffs that end up being paid by American consumers and, now, his determination to seize Greenland, its minerals and perhaps sleds (but not the dogs).

“If Trump makes good on his recurring threat to use force to gain the island,” Nichols contends, “he would not only blow apart America’s most important alliance; he could set in motion a series of events that could lead to global catastrophe—or even to World War III.”

Greenland, of course, is important to the security of the United States—as it is to the entire Atlantic community and to the free world itself. “This fact might be new to Trump, but Western strategists have known it for a century or more, which is why the United States has had a military presence in Greenland for decades.”

The New York Times (ATTACHMENT NINE) tried to suss out what transpired between Veep Vance, Little Marco and the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland behind closed doors, and settled for a statement by Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister that he did understand American concerns about the “new security situation in the Arctic and the High North” – caused, primarily, by the melting ice that enables sea traffic (including Russian and Chinese commercial and military ships) easier access to the West.

Less understanding are the majority of Greenlanders (pop. 57,000 – smaller than Kalamazoo, MI) few of whom seem to have any interes in joining the United States... one telling timeservers Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli that she was well aware of “the holes in this country’s health care system and its gaping economic inequality.”

“People here enjoy a highly Scandinavian standard of living,” Gettleman reported, which means “free health care, free education and a strong safety net. At the same time, they value their traditions. I can’t tell you how many people we’ve met who still hunt seals and reindeer and love ice fishing and spending hours outside, with their sled dogs or on their snowmobiles.”

Santa Claus, like Trump, may want to make Greenland American... if only to protect Rudy and the rest of the reindeer... but there’s little Christmas charity among the businesspeople seeking rare earths or Department of War commandos who believe Greenland “a good place, because it’s so close to the North Pole, to track missiles.”

But some among Pete (Hegseth’s) people believe the loss of NATO would also mean a loss of security – although few are willing to say so, openly, especially as the likes of Stephen Miller say that nations are not entitled to territories “they cannot defend”... presumably on their own and without assistance from larger, stronger allies. (The Hill, Jan. 17^th, ATTACHMENT TEN)

“The new domain of international competition is going to be polar competition,” Miller told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “To control a territory, you have to be able to defend a territory, improve a territory, inhabit a territory,” Miller added. “Denmark has failed at every single one of these tests.”

“There is no question that Denmark welcomes American presence in Greenland to do everything we can to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic,” Sen. Thom Tillis posted on the social platform X on Thursday before joining Murkowski and assorted donkeys in a trip to meet with Danish officials. But he also rejected invasion. “Let’s work together with Denmark and our NATO allies to project strength against these adversaries.”

Other elephants in the Congressional chamber have expressed suspicion of the efficacy of invasion. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nb) called the plan “really dumb.” The asses, of course, were even less supportive with Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Ca) calling Miller’s comments “completely unhinged.”

Matthew Chance of CNN found statements by Nielsen and Frederiksen to have perhaps been influenced by not only threats, but Trump’s “extraordinary military action” in Venezuela (ATTACHMENT ELEVEN) while a statement “by leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain and Denmark” declared that “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

When pressed whether military intervention is off the table, Miller instead questioned Denmark’s claim over the Arctic territory.

Following Bolton’s lead, Time’s Connor Greene (Time, ATTACHMENT TWELVE) described the mild Trump 1.0 interest in Greenland as a simple real estate deal which, during his White House exile, gradually ballooned and bloated into a national security issue. (See the Monday “In the News” account of Trump’s appetite for military revenge and retaliation against another smaller Scandanavian country, Norway... and its disrespectful Nobel jurists... above – on the premise that all those small, smug Scandowners are riding the same sleigh.)

The Administration is also considering the idea of offering cash payments to Greenlanders, ranging from $10,000 to $15,000, in exchange for joining the U.S., Reuters reported.

“There’s a way for the Trump administration to get what it says it wants, and that's mineral access and military bases, by doing something that should be normal,” Nick Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and U.S. ambassador to China, told TIME. “And that's respecting Denmark, working with them diplomatically on the basis the Danes have suggested: we are sovereign, but we welcome American investment and military presence.”

Malte Humpert, an expert on Arctic geopolitics and founder of the Arctic Institute, says that Russian dominance in the region should concern the U.S., citing Russia’s Northern Fleet, “the largest ice-capable naval fleet in the world.”

Both Burns and Humpert emphasized to TIME, however, that controlling all of Greenland wasn’t necessary to accomplish Trump’s national security goals. Humperted points to the defense treaty from 1951 between the U.S. and Denmark, which already grants the U.S. the right to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases in Greenland.

“If it's purely a security aspect, there's really no reason why the U.S. would like to claim or acquire Greenland because they already have access to Greenland in terms of military bases,” he said.

The President has dismissed the idea that Greenland’s rich natural resources, including oil, rare earth minerals, and uranium, an important element for nuclear power, have a significant role in his push to acquire the territory, saying, "We need Greenland for national security, not minerals.”

And Bob Loeffler, a professor of public policy at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Loeffler believes that many of the resources on the island can be sourced elsewhere, and pushes back against the narrative that rare earth minerals, among other resources, can only be found in remote Arctic regions.

“Rare earths have that name, but they're not particularly rare,” he says. “And we have a number of them in the U.S., so it's not necessarily clear we need to go to Greenland.”

But Saleem Ali, a professor of energy and environment at the University of Delaware, cites the interest of investors... multiple billionaire American businessmen, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, are exploring the increasingly navigable regions of Greenland for metals like nickel and cobalt that are used for powering electric vehicles.

GUK’s octogenarian scold, Sir Simon Jenkins. warned Americans that panicking over Greenland “plays into Trump’s hands” even though the US president’s designs on Greenland are “clearly mad.” None of his staff (Miller, perhaps excepted) has been able to say why and some critics even call invasion talk a “cognitive test” as might even call for impeachment or removal under the 25^th Amendment (leaving Vance in charge).

Until now, Jenkins maintains (ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN), it would have “seemed a comic satire for Norway, Sweden, France and Germany to be sending troops to Greenland, pending a possible US attack. Yet that is the absurd prospect happening this week. Britain even sent a military officer. This has come within weeks of Trump’s leadership putsch in Venezuela, and within days of his threatened military assault on Iran. In the latter he appeared to claim victory, saying Iran had stopped using its armed troops to suppress street protests. It happens that Trump has effectively been doing the same in Minnesota. He has had a hectic fortnight.”

Trump, says the GUKster, “appears to be like a shoplifting addict who cannot resist a quick grab – an oilfield here, a critical minerals mine there. It is hard to believe he will not back off, but when?

“Wise leaders have advisers. Reckless ones have sycophants.” Fortunately, the US, of all countries, must be the most unthreatened... at least by foreign bad actors... and Jenkins contends that, (s)ooner or later the US’s antique but resilient constitution will exert itself, so we can hold out for three more years and midterm elections may restore the integrity and authority of Congress – even tho’ Trump’s remaining years “are likely to be dominated by an ever more eccentric vanity and growing domestic antipathy.”

As for the (GUK) homeland, Jenkins maintains that China does not pose an existential threat to Britain. “It never has and I cannot believe it ever will.” Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was outrageous and the west was right to help it defend itself. “But that is quite different from declaring Russia a threat to Britain’s territorial security”, let alone America’s.

A dispute over Greenland, however, could split Nato and severely weaken it. “If ever a crisis merited stalling and slow diplomacy,” Jenkins advises, “this is it. When tub-thumping generals and politicians seize the microphone from diplomats and peacemakers, all sanity vanishes.”

Other GUKsters Andrew Roth and Jennifer Rankin admits Europe needs the US, “but it also needs to stand up to Trump.”

European leaders have entertained Trump’s demands for nearly a year as he has pushed Nato countries to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP, and threatened to pull US support from Ukraine as part of a peace process that appears to favour Russia. They have also given a muted response to US adventurism abroad including the capture and rendition of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. (Jan. 17^th, ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN)

The obsequiousness has often played out in public. Various European leaders have vied for the role of “Trump whisperer” and NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, infamously referred to him as “daddy” at a summit last June.

“The president’s ambition is on the table,” the Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Fox News after the talks. “Of course we have our red lines. This is 2026, you trade with people but you don’t trade people.”

“Europe is not, unfortunately, in a strong position to strongly object, because, say, if Europe were to open up the dispute into the trade area, I’m certain that the US would respond in kind or more than in kind,” said Latvia’s former prime minister Krišjanis Kariņš. “At the end of the day, Europe still needs the US.”

Instead, however, it was Trump who exploited trade and his big beautiful tariffs to silence the Euros who’d protested his proposals by wearing MAGA hats (altered to read: “Make America Go Away”) and sending token military forces to Nuuk... “a small French military contingent arriv(ing) on the island Thursday as part of a limited deployment including troops from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK...” which the national politicians, EU and NATO argued would commit the West to war if Russia or China (or Iran, Iraq, Cuba or North Korea) attacked under NATO Section Five and so ensure security. “The defence and protection of Greenland is a common concern for the entire Nato alliance,” said Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen who joined Rasmussen, Rutte and Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt for another conclave on Monday.

The President, however, took the deployments as an attack against Himself – slapping ten percent levies on the alien wannabe defenders unless they took the knee by February,,, twenty five percent by June.

As noted by Bolton (above) Trump’s interest in acquiring the island has only grown since his longtime friend Ronald Lauder, the heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company, first suggested it to him in 2019. The White House has said its main concern is national security, but Trump has admitted that ego plays a key role as well. He told the New York Times last week that owning Greenland was “what I feel is psychologically needed for success”.

Others in his administration – particularly Vance – have seen the obsession over Greenland as an opportunity to pick another fight with European allies, and European diplomats saw his decision to join the negotiations as a negative sign.

Vance “is especially enjoying this”, one said. “It’s clear why he’s gotten involved and it will make the talks more emotional.” Politico reported that 10 ministers and officials polled on his involvement did not regard him as an ally on Greenland or other transatlantic matters.

Marco Giulio Barone of the Future Warfare journal (references on Telegram, Facebook and X) cited Manny Macron’s New Year's address to the armed forces – two weeks late, but c’est la vie (Jan 15, ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN); the not-so-slim Shady “starkly” declaring "nous sommes prêts à dissuader pour défendre notre sol" (we are ready to deter to defend our territory), "pour être libres, il faut être craints" (to be free, we must be feared)... a potentially unprecedented signal that France “may extend its nuclear deterrent umbrella to encompass European allies facing territorial threats from Washington.”

By characterizing an US seizure of Greenland as triggering "unprecedented cascading consequences" and explicitly treating Europe as homeland territory worthy of deterrence protection, FW ventured that Macron “has subtly but significantly expanded the conceptual boundaries of French vital interests...” an escalation in France's year-long campaign to position itself as Europe's nuclear guarantor amid US strategic unreliability; extending nuclear assurances beyond strict territorial defence. A July 2025 UK-France declaration established that both nations' deterrents "can be coordinated" and that "no extreme threat to Europe" would fail to prompt a response from both nuclear powers.

FW opined that the Parisians’ “relatively modest nuclear force” lacks the capacity to “credibly extend deterrence across multiple European allies while maintaining credible homeland protection against Russia” but now seems of less import than what he (and, maybe, Starmer) want to impress upon their home turf: Macron having “positioned France as the ultimate guarantor of European sovereignty - a role that implicitly invokes the full spectrum of French military power, including its force de dissuasion.”

Is it a declaration aimed less at Washington... or Moscow or Beijing... than at the Germans (who still have no known nuclear weapons, but are, as ever, the Germans)?

After Trump’s thrilling but disturbing invasion, removal and jailing of Venezuelan President Maduro (which, domestic and foreign detractors noted, still left his police and political machine in place, dashing democratic hopes for that country), Greenland PM Nielsen had implied that the United States was compiling a secret list of citizens who would support a takeover.

It was, apparently, a very short list.

But after what 1440 called “another (Trump) curveball”, it may have gained importance in America may be seeking other allies in other places than NATO or the EU... places like Moscow and Beijing.

In a related unrelated matter after Danish and Greenish diplomats left their talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acknowledging “fundamental disagreement” on the future of what 1440 called “the semi-autonomous Danish territory” (Jan. 15, ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN), Rasmussen then admitted: “We didn’t manage to change the American position. It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”

Even worse... the President then pulled yet another perverse pivot – siding with the forces of imperialist invasion: “casting Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy rather than Russia’s Vladimir Putin as the obstacle to peace, in his latest reversal on the conflict already raging on the continent.”

European capitals were surprised and dismayed by Trump’s proposed peace deal to settle the war that has now raged for almost four years in Ukraine, the continent’s largest land conflict since World War II after Trump “flipped the script” yet again.

It was not Putin but Zelenskyy, he said, who was the barrier to a peace deal.

The Kremlin, on the other hand, agreed with Trump’s assessment that Zelenskyy was at fault. "That is indeed the case," spokesperson Peskov said.

The multiple competing crises and the scale of challenges facing European leaders are “daunting” to navigate, said Christoph Meyer, professor of European and international politics at King’s College London.

The state of the world means it might be a “good moment” to start drinking, Europe's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas privately told lawmakers, Politico reported – also answering the German question: their defense ministry revealing that a reconnaissance team of 13 soldiers (thirteen, count ‘em!) to Greenland as of Thursday for exercises running to Saturday. "The aim is to explore the framework conditions for possible military contributions to support Denmark in ensuring security in the region," Berlin said.

(At that, they did, at least, out outsource their military over the English, who sent just one military officer to Greenland as of Saturday, Sky News reported.)

Apparently, the Brits and Krauts determined that, if Shady Frank Macron wants responsibility for any European military response to the American bugout, he can have it!

Trump, meanwhile, stayed at home in Washington or in freezing Florida until his Tuesday departure for Davis... tapping out post after Truth Social post bolstering his most favorite contention that Americans needed Greenland to host our planned “Golden Dome” missile defense system, as Politico reported (Jan. 15, ATTACHMENT SEVENTEEN)

"Militarily, without the vast power of the United States ... NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent — Not even close!" Trump posted. "They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES."

After Nielsen said that “If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Trump spat back: “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

MORE BIG, BEAUTIFUL TARIFFS and a BIG, BAD BAZOOKA!

And then, a week ago, Katie Hawkinson... reporting in the Independent U.K. that... as Greenlanders braved near-freezing temperatures (but far warmer and far less riskier than those in Minneapolis) to march against Trump’s takeover threats... Djonald UnGreened scoffed that – despite the French ambitions and thirteen Germans – there wasn’t a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland, but there’s everything we can do. You found that out last week with Venezuela.” (Jan. 16, ATTACHMENT EIGHTEEN)

IUK also posted an estimate by NBC News that buying the Arctic island could cost the U.S. “up to $700 billion — which is more than half of the Defense Department’s annual budget,” even if the Greens and Danes were willing to cut a deal.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has said the plan is to have a military presence “in rotation” with allies over the coming weeks.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that an attempt by a NATO member to take over another member would be “a political disaster.”

“It would be the end of the world as we know it, which guaranteed a world based on NATO solidarity, which held back the evil forces associated with communist terror or other forms of aggression,” he added.

Closer to home, IUK surveyed the Senate and House, “some of Trump’s fellow Republicans have criticized his push for Greenland, including Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and Nebraska Representative Don Bacon.

No matter – Saturday morning, Trump dropped the T-bomb on the disobedient Euros, affixing his ten percent (starting February) levies... increasing to twenty five percent (if a deal is not reached by June 1st) to punish Denmark and seven other European countries until “a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

Of the many warner-ers on a Greenland invasion “triggering the end of NATO”, the article and peanut gallery in the Jan. 11^th New York Post was most surprising, in that it is a reliable pro-Trump organ.

Not that day. (ATTACHMENT NINETEEN)

That other Post interviewed Democrats, of all people… Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Mark Warner of Virginia (a death knell)… and some of their usual Republican go-tos, a few of whom going bad.

Multiple Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and John Kennedy (R-La.), have also raised concerns about the US taking Greenland by force — with Kennedy quipping that it would be “weapons-grade stupid.”

Peanuts tended to assume that Trump was just playing a war game to slice the price he would eventually pay to acquire the island. While there were the usual snarks about Danish “wokeness” and Democratic ignorance (or senility… pacé Ol’ Goneaway Joe) and MAGAtistic assurances that NATO, the United Nations and such were already invalided and that Europe itself just jealous and irrelevant there was also a bit o’history… “(t)he U.S. purchased the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million in gold, renaming them the U.S. Virgin Islands, a strategic move during World War I to secure the Caribbean and protect the Panama Canal” reporting E. Another asked the U.S. to ask Bjork.

Peanut Galleries always spark strange solutions… so here is one. Real, white Americans think that Puerto Ricans are no better than Mexicans and Venezuelans – we don’t want them and they don’t want us… so why not trade the island and the likes of AOC to Denmark? The chilly Copenhagaandaskers can chill out on a nice hot beach while we get the gold or whatever is underground in Greenland and the Russians and Chinese warships can take the long route round the horn. Or, if not P.R., how bout trading back the Virgins (or just one little speck therein – an embarrassment anyway) and let the Euros practice their Europerversity on hallowed ground?

Now back to reality – harsh reality for The Donald.

And the big, beautiful tariffs… sequeled…

This burden of beasts, as noted before, would be borne by Americans at their grocers, auto dealerships, furniture stores and pharmacies (NBC, Jan. 17, ATTACHMENT TWENTY)

“Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!” he Truth Socialed.

Already, the U.S. has a trade framework agreement with the European Union (America’s largest trading partner and its largest source of imports), capping tariffs at 15% and an agreement with the United Kingdom capping tariffs on imports at 10%. It was not immediately clear if the new tariffs would have voided that deal or, if POTUS changed his mind, again, be in addition to those rates.

The new tariffs “would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” replied European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in a joint statement. “Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty.” (GUARDIAN U.K., ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE)

The chairman of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, Bernd Lange, called the new tariffs “unbelievable” and said he would be calling for the European Parliament to suspend work on implementing the U.S.-E.U. trade deal “until U.S. ends its threats.” He also said the E.U.’s so-called “trade bazooka,” formally called the Anti-Coercion Instrument,”must now be used.”

"We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed," said Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson in a statement. "Only Denmark and Greenland decide on issues concerning Denmark and Greenland." Similar expressions of support oozed out of Germany’s foreign ministry, French Frank Shadey, the U.K. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Domestically, Democrats were in lock step but Trump’s own party was rambling all over the prison yard.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ar., responded to the president’s announcement on Fox News with a “sort-of” announcement, saying that Trump “is right that Greenland is vital for the national security interests of the United States,” and adding “the best decision probably would be to acquire Greenland from Denmark,” but without specifying whether the option would be to buy the island and its people (and what might have to be cut back – even if the price were only half of what NBC postulated above) or declaring war on NATO (with or without help from Russia).

But his cold cohort, Sen. Murkowski, called Trump’s new tariffs “unnecessary, punitive, and a profound mistake," while South Carolina’s Tillis, R-N.C called the response to our own allies for sending a small number of troops to Greenland for training (or even for a scheme to invoke Article Five), “bad for America, bad for American businesses, and bad for America's allies."

Tillis and Sen. Jeanne Shaneen, D-NH further added, in a bipartisan statement, that: "This kind of rhetoric also further helps adversaries like Putin and Xi who want to see NATO divided."

Speak o’ de Debbil, IUK (Jan. 16, ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO) reported that Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation was “extraordinary” from the perspective of international law, despite Moscow itself having been repeatedly accused of breaching international law with its deadly invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

“On the other hand, given that President Trump is in Washington ... he himself has said that international law is not a priority for him,” Peskov added.

It is, however, for Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen - who warned the United States (rather hard to say “threatened”) to stop its threats of annexation against the territory.

“No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation,” he urged on Sunday, emphasizing that while Greenland is open to a dialogue with the U.S., it will no longer stand for “pressure” or “disrespectful posts on social media.” Nielsen’s impassioned statement comes as President Donald Trump renewed his annexation threat against Greenland in the wake of the Venezuela operation which saw Nicolás Maduro captured and brought to the U.S. (Time. ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE)

“When the President of the United States talks about ‘we need Greenland’ and connects us with Venezuela and military intervention, it's not just wrong, it’s so disrespectful,” said Nielsen as he responded via social media. Addressing Trump’s rhetoric regarding the position of Greenland, Nielsen continued: “We are a part of NATO and we are fully aware of our country's strategic location. And we realize that our security depends on good friends and strong alliances. In this regard, a respectful and loyal relationship with the United States is very important. It's been that way for decades.”

But Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, alluded to the U.S. one day controlling Greenland in a social media post over the weekend. Miller wrote “soon” alongside an image of a map of Greenland with the U.S. flag across the island.

Nielsen responded, saying “our country is not for sale and our future is not determined by social media posts.” He urged Greenland natives not to panic, but insisted “there's good reason to speak up against the lack of respect.”

In France, Emmanuel Macron delivered his New Year's address to the armed forces, a highly anticipated event as France continues to seek a budget for 2026 amid geopolitical tensions, including transatlantic tensions, and growing military needs.

The French President's stark declaration —"nous sommes prêts à dissuader pour défendre notre sol" (we are ready to deter to defend our territory) - represents “a potentially unprecedented signal that France may extend its nuclear deterrent umbrella to encompass European allies facing territorial threats from Washington,” wrote Marco Giulio Barone in Future Warfare (ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR). Coupled with his assertion that "pour être libres, il faut être craints" (to be free, we must be feared), “Macron has articulated a doctrine that treats threats to European sovereignty, including Denmark's control over Greenland, as matters potentially invoking France's nuclear posture.”

Nuclear war… with France! We’ve been on good terms since the French and Indian War – which ended in a victory for the British, if not the Americans… it would be thirteen more years until the Declaration of Independence and Paris chose not to come to the aid of Maximillian in Mexico when the Civil War ended and Honest Abe rattled sabres southwards and eastwards.

Perhaps, suggested Mr. Barone, there’s an underlying agenda… Macron demonstrating French willingness to assume security leadership amid US unreliability. “To Moscow, coordinated Franco-British nuclear messaging reinforces that European deterrence exists independent of US guarantees.”

Then again, if that war broke out, could President Trump’s on again – off again bromance with Mad Vlad encourage the Russians to join America in a final struggle against the decadent Euros?

And then, backing up their words with deeds… at least of a sort… European troops began arriving in Greenland a weej ago “in a show of support, as leaders scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump’s threats were thrown another American curveball.” (1440, Jan, 15^th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY FIVE)

Trump pushed ahead with his aim of “conquering” one European territory, as Denmark’s top diplomat said after a high-stakes meeting in Washington on Wednesday – and then the American president (perhaps operating on the unlikely scenario above) then sided with the man who invaded another… “casting Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy rather than Russia’s Vladimir Putin as the obstacle to peace, in his latest reversal on the conflict already raging on the continent.

“Trump's comments drew new pushback from leaders in Europe, whose alarm over U.S. actions had for weeks been focused farther north.”

Probably still trying to figure out what was what, the Russian Embassy in Belgium, where NATO is headquartered, said Thursday that the alliance was “increasing its military presence there under the false pretext of a growing threat from Moscow and Beijing.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any attempts to ignore Russia’s interests in the region “will not go unanswered and will have far-reaching consequence,” in that European capitals were surprised and dismayed by Trump’s proposed peace deal to settle the Russo-Ukrainian war that has now raged for almost four years, “the continent’s largest land conflict since World War II.”

The unpredictability of Trump’s position on Ukraine, coupled with his escalating threats toward Greenland, is leaving Europe in a perpetual frantic mode to cobble a response, said Christoph Meyer, professor of European and international politics at King’s College London.

The multiple competing crises and the scale of challenges facing European leaders are “daunting” to navigate, Meyer told NBC News.

Europe's foreign policy chief seems to agree.

The state of the world means it might be a “good moment” to start drinking, Kaja Kallas privately told lawmakers, Politico reported. But it's clear that a policy of “treading lightly” with Trump is not working for Europe, Meyer said.

“What Europeans are now trying to do is to kind of push back, but push back in a way that doesn’t overly publicly antagonize the administration, while still sending a clear enough message that there are very significant costs if they continue down that path,” he added.

BAZOOKA BERNIE

But instead of striking back at NATO with renegade American nukes, Trump resorted to an older, more profitable… for him, if not American consumers… tactic: more sanctions.

Trump said that he would impose a new 10% tariff on Denmark and seven other European countries until “a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” (NBC, ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX)

The other countries affected would be Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland.

Trump said the duties would increase to 25% if a deal is not reached by June 1.

“China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!” he boasted.

The new tariffs “would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in a joint statement.

“Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty.”

"The European Union will always be very firm in defending international law, wherever it may be, and of course, starting within the territory of the European Union's member states," Costa added in a press conference on Saturday about a separate trade deal signing.

The chairman of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, Bernd Lange, called the new tariffs “unbelievable.”

Lange said he would be calling for the European Parliament to suspend work on implementing the U.S.-E.U. trade deal “until U.S. ends its threats.” He also said the E.U.’s so-called “trade bazooka,” formally called the Anti-Coercion Instrument,”must now be used.”

As for the war, the EU commitment to NATO’s war on America was… well… underwhelming.

The U.K. has sent just one military officer to Greenland as of Saturday, Sky News reported.

And then Trump and his nephew, Jared Kushner struck out in a different direction… establishing a Board of Peace which would be managed by Himself (Donnie, not the boy), Despite the disclosure by document leakers that the board would be "an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict" with memberships on sale to those contributing $1bn (£740m), and denunciations from the EU and United Nations (who accused Trump’s BOP of trying to subvert or replace the venerable institution… and despire the likelihood of a scam, the Peaceniks managed to sign up twenty members.

All dictatorships.

There was one maybe… while Trump trumpeted that Vladimir Putin “had accepted an invitation to join the initiative,” (The Hill, yesterday, ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN) the Russian president did not confirm this and said his country “was still studying the invitation.”

The BBC (ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT) cited the potential Putin presence as their reason to decline Trump’s invitation.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the UK will not yet be signing up to US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace over concerns about Russian leader Vladimir Putin's possible participation.

Cooper told the BBC the UK had been invited to join the board but "won't be one of the signatories today" at a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

There was better news on the Arctic front, the BBC reported, as another TACO began preparation after Trump “dropped planned tariffs on eight European countries and ruled out using force to take the island.” This induced more potendial Peace Boarders like Pakistan, Egypt and Qatar to join members like Argentina, Hungary and Turkey.

The Vatican also said that the Pope had received an invitation.

Further details on the Big, Beautiful (Greenland) Deal emerged yesterday afternoon during Trump’s “wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen in Davos.”

Trump told CNBC (ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE) that he had formed a “framework” of a “concept” of a deal over Greenland.

More details emerged today as the German medium DW opined that tension over the arctic had been “defused”. Greenlanders, Euros and most Americans expressed “relief” but also “uncertainty.”

"I'm not quite sure that it's a deal... from our perspective, it's just Donald Trump being Donald Trump," said Najannguaq Christensen… a Nuukster and human rights activist… adding that while there have been big announcements, “little tangible action has followed. Meanwhile, Greenland hasn't really been involved in the conversation.”

As it seems to have turned out, the deal dates back to the 1951 agreements noted in Attachment Two, wherein the United States will receive a yet-unspecified quantity of “pockets” in which to build new military bases, details also unspecified.

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen expressed glee “that the threats of US military intervention are off the table for now, having repeatedly stated that no one has the mandate to negotiate agreements about the country without the involvement of its government.”

Denmark's PM Frederiksen took a similar view, “but after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Friday, she emphasized that defense and security in the Arctic are a matter for NATO as a whole. Copenhagen announced that talks with the US would start promptly.”

According to Christensen, before the escalation, Greenland was in a "decolonial period" in which issues such as justice, reappraisal, and greater self-determination had come to the fore. This has changed. Independence is now seen as an even longer-term project, given that the current global situation has increased the need for protection.

Greenland does not have its own armed forces and the concern among many residents is that they will ultimately be excluded from conversation as equal partners, and once again become the object of strategic interests.

"We have already already been colonized once," Christensen said. "We do not want to be colonized twice."

It may go without mention... but we’ll mention it anyway... the next gumment shutdown is fast approaching, and repercussions from the last are still sliding the eee-con-me downwards into mucous and mayhem like mountains in Switzerland or the Sierras. In fact, we briefly experienced a Debt Clock meltdown with some of our Indices soaring by as much as a hundred points (wages, government revenues, millionaire population), others plummeting by as much (more of the latter, including unemployment, Americans officially living in poverty and all kinds of public and private debt).

A correction ensued… below, the off the wall Debt Clock numbers noted in blue, while the actual Index showed a slight drop

IN the NEWS: JANUARY 16^th, 2026 to JANUARY 22^nd, 2026

Friday, January 16, 2026

Dow: 49,359.33

It’s Dolly Day #1. She’s nearing 80 and some friends join up for a remake of her old hit “Light of a Clear, Blue Morning”.

President Trump puts on his MAGA cowboy hat (no such thing, but should be) and goes war crazy. He threatens ICE protesters with the Insurrection Act and, until he decides, the military is also being pivoted from Venezuela to Iran (and, maybe, Greenland), Dolly Pam Bondi opens probes of Minneapolis Mayor Frey and Gov. Walz... ICE agents shoot more protesters, gas 6 children (nearly killing three) and poke out the eye of a presumed liberal.

To appease the beast, Venezuela’s Machado hands over her Nobel medallion to Djonald UnRewarded but after he takes it he says he’ll still support Delia Rodriguez (a Communist) over Machado (whom CNN calls a capitalist and gumment cutter – Attachment “C”). Cancelled lateniter Colbert calls her the “Joker’s Mom” and his guest, Johnathan Meachem says “we are the generation at risk of losing our ethos” while Trump reportedly posts the sad news that he is sitting alone in the dark with a dying laptop.

The only thing to cheer him up is to hold a Great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lago with champagne and crabs – presumably not the crustacians spilled onto an Irish road in a truck crash... many, thereafter, escaping into the Hibernian void.

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Dow: Closed

Trump waffles on Insurrection Act while Minnesota riots continue but says National Guard will remain in D.C. through 2026/7. Walz and Frey respond, saying that the proposed indictments are about revenge and retaliation for speaking out against ICE and that, while Trump denounces protests at home, he reiterates support (some day, somehow) for Iranians. TACO on military aid, but the mullahs do postpone hangings.

Nobel gifter Machado calls Venezuelan Veep-plus Delcy a Communist who supports “Romanians” (?) and is called a nice woman by Djonald DisHonored, but gets no endorsement for the Presidency even after winning the last election with 70 to 80% of the vote, depending on source.

In what the TV weatherpeople call “a buffet of bac weather”, Minnesota protesters endure (voluntarily) and 3,000 Icy ICEMEN (under orders) do battle in -24° cold. Trump will send 1,600 more reincofcements in from the military, presumably authorized to use lethal force, but these will feel comparatively warm – being that they are to be transferred from Fairbanks, AK.

Julio Iglesias joins the dishonor roll with accused sex criminal Timothy Busfield... both plead not guilty,

Sunday, January 18, 2026

Dow: Closed

It’s Winnie-the-Pooh Day and CBS pollsters find that voters are saying “Pooh!” to the President... his ratings are negative, 59 to 41%; 70% oppose buying Greenland and 74% oppose invasion.

Short of a shooting war between NATO and, not with, the USA, President Trump imposes big, beautiful tariffs on eight Euros who have sent symbolic troops (e.g. 13 Germans, etc.) to Nuuk – 10% if Denmark does not surrender by Feb. 1^st, 25% by June. Ordinary Americans, of course, will be double-billed... first on their imports of French wine and English muffins, then on whatever retaliatory tariffs the Old World imposes.

It’s also Talkshow Sundey and Minneapolis Mayor (and investigated, but as yet unsubpoena’d terrorist) Jacob Frey tells ABC that he’s rejecting DHS Kristi Noem’s suggestion of a “protest zone” for deportation foes to chant and march (presumably on a lake with thin ice) against ICE; saying “We can not negotiate away freedom of speech. For the Administration, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tx) cites Veep Vance and Vader (Stephen) Miller’s contention that “ICE has absolute immunity” regarding the murder of Renee Good so it’s “unwise” to protest, even peacefully, to defend the criminal aliens that, of course, Joe Biden let in.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) says he will not vote for “a single dollar” to fund the occupation – but also does not support abolishing ICE, just regime change in the USA. Liberal roundtabler Donna Brazile opposes the “drama” of ICE “terrorizing” even legal citizens, SCOTUS blogger Sara Isgur replies Americans still want stronger border enforcement; Bernie bro Faiz Shakur says Trump is “fracturing” democracy at the expense of the kitchen table issues and Elianna Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon says protesters support violent criminals and Walz chose not to run for re-election because he knew he was incompetent.

“On “Face the Nation”, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara defends the First Amendment while ICE spokesman Marcos Charles blames the liberal media for the riots. Frey, doing double duty on “The Week” says that, if the objective is safety, ICE should just go away and reiterates his rejection of Noem – who then appears and says protesters are organized and funded by mysterious villains who pressured senile old Joe into allowing 20 million violent criminals into America where Gov. Walz doled out more taxpayer money to fund Somali fraud.

Monday, January 19, 2026

Dow: 49,590.20

It’s MLK Day and, also, Dolly Day #2 (her actual 80^th) as the tributes flow to both. Selected portions of his “I Have a Dream” speech are brought back from out of the past. (See ATTACHMENT “A”)

Djonald McDreamy has his dream... a 51^st state: Greenland (sorry, Puerto Rico)... and he has a grudge – now posting that invasion and war with NATO would be the fault of Norway (and, by extension, Europe... its union, NATO and all the tariff trolls) even though Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre says the Nobel Committee is not a gumment entity. Trump will confront these scoundrels at Davos, Switzerland moneymaker meeting where he’ll presumably meet Glad Vlad to talk Ukraine and Gaza and maybe form an alliance (with, also China) against NATO... that is, if he can escape the global travel troubles caused by wind gusts, blowing dust, snow and ice (the cold stuff, not the agency) which caused a 100 vehicle pileup in Zeeland, MI, an aerial “hard landing” in Disneyworld (where frozen lizards were falling out of trees) and... abroad... eight Austrians are killed in avalanches, eighteen more in Chilean wildfires and forty more on a train in Spain speeding down the wrong lane.

The NFL conference finals are set... next Sunday the Rams play the Seahawks and the Patriots take on the Broncos (who, like LA, won in overtime, but lost their QB Bo Nix with a broken ankle). Venerable Bills coach Sean McDermott was immediately fired after the overtime loss to Denver... the impatient billionaire owners sacked ten coaches and counting - often paying them for years to come so long as they just want to retire to a hammock or barstool in Barstow and not take another coaching job. Depending on the vagaries of their contracts, they can even double dip by going into the broadcasting booth!

And at the movies, Avatar Three tops the Box Office for the fifth week in a row while Zootopia Two becomes the highest grossing animated film of all time. Coming up: more prequels, sequels and superhero mashups like Avengers 83, and even stately Sir Ben Kingsley puts on a funny costume to play “Wonderman” for Marvel... but not ‘til next Christmas... leaving cinemaddicts a whole year to wonder how, and why.

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Dow: 48,824.00

It’s TACO Tuesday as far as invading Greenland or invoking the Insurrection Act goes, but the President still stands by his tariffs as Air Force One storms off to Davos for the World Economic Forum but he still accuses Euros of being rogues and cowards and blames Norway’s denial of his “official” Nobel for his war on Greenland, howsoever on hold.

DoE TACOs too (or would it be DOEACO) on student loan garnishing... postponed for a few weeks or months. Most American associate education with the NCAA football finals where Fernando Mendoza (will ICE investigate him?) leads Indiana to a victory over Miami and wins the Heisman while the “coaches’ carousel” continues (fired, but paid).

In the celebrity carousel, Brooklyn Beckham (son of soccer star David and spice girl Posh) speaks out against his parents while Prince Harry goes to London to sue the Daily Mail for writing bad things about him.

Back home: ICE spokesman says that the fight is to prevent good Americans from being replaced by Somalians as elderly man is dragged out of the wrong house in his skivvies and questioned as temperatures drop to minus 30°. ICE battles back with an armada of raids in Portland... Maine, this time.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Dow: 49,077.23

After news of postponed Greenland War, stocks rebound. Friends and foes alike mark his first year in office, MAGA celebrates with the Saudi royal family (murderers, but not as bad as Iranians) while, on the other hand, Bernie Sanders goes on Colbert and says Trump “unleashes international anarchy” and that Elon Musk, despite Tesla’s decline, is still “richer than 52% of the bottom classes combined.” Then, Lucinda Williams sings a somber song.

Hinting at the shadow of a format of a deal, Trump tells the WEFFies (but, mostly, Americans) that he will support legislation to prevent Wall Street sharpies from buying up single-family homes. Canada’s Carney man, however, says that after Greenland (no matter how it ends), smaller countries “will be on the menu.”

Scapegoat Uvalde cop Adrian Gonzalez is found not guilty by a jury after disclosures that his waiting was just following orders – what, for example, Sen. Kelly was penalized for counseling defiance. Also in the courts are old favorites Mangione, Epstein files... gumment subpoenas on Minnesota’s Walz and Fren and obscurity’s Slick Willie and Hillary (nine Democrats favor locking up their former President) ... Timothy Busfield gets bail, Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley join Prince Harry in suing the tabloids.

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Dow: 49,384.01

Details of the deal, or the framework of the concept therein are starting to leak out of Switzerland as chatter pivots from Greenald to Gaza and Ukraine, so the President flies back to the U.S.A. on a crippled Air Force One. Some Euros relieved not to have to be shooting and being shot by Americans; others say that, despite the TACO, “the rules of diplomacy and law no longer apply.” In essence, Denmark will give some “pockets of land” in Greenland to America to build more military bases, like the ones they closed at the close of the Cold War.

Speaking of cold, protesters in Minnesota shrink and shrivel as temperatures fall to -32° in Minneapolis and -45° in Duluth but march around and shout anyway, and ask businesses to close to honor “No ICE Day”. Many do, but some of these just want to stay home and off the roads.

While up in the air, up there, Trump also merches his “Peace Board” with a billion dollar fee to join. Several contries do. But most of them are dictatorships. Putin, as of today, was undecided as to whether bribing his most nuclear adversary would be worth roubles that could otherwise be deployed in killing Ukrainians. It’s a reindeer dancer’s choice, my totalitarian friends, he muses.

For Americans (and, face it, Others) besotted with amusements, the Oscar nominations... having added a category for casting... see a record sixteen tips o’ the hat for “Sinners”. “One Battle After Another” finishes second, with thirteen, and “Marty Supreme” trails. “Zootopia Two” sets B.O. record for an animated feature and becomes Oscar favorite. Songwriters and baseball players also face Hall of Fame decision days.

Presidents Trump, Putin, the EU and the world might have spent a few days jawboning in Geneva (or places thereabouts) but the real economic drama was back home as most of the sequestered and uncounted numbers (with the exception of inflation) were finally released and updated and, according to Debt Clock, showed some staggering statistics – for good or for ill. (Today’s report was largely positive for the reason that positive developments, especially on large factor occurrances, carried more weight than equal but negative changes on smaller weighted issues... thus demonstrating the necessity of reconfigurations, as soon as time permits.

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

Gains in indices as improved are noted in GREEN. Negative/harmful indices in RED as are their designation. (Note – some of the indices where the total went up created a realm where their value went down... and vice versa.) See a further explanation of categories HERE

ECONOMIC INDICES		(60%)
CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS by PERCENTAGE			SCORE		OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS
INCOME	(24%)	6/17/13 revised 1/1/22	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	LAST WEEK	THIS WEEK	THE WEEK’S CLOSING STATS...
Wages (hrly. Per cap)	9%	1350 points	12/11/25	+1.13%	1/26	1,963.90	1,986.14 1,986.14	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/average-hourly-earnings 38.86 39.30 Increase Oct to Dec. 2025. This is the hypothetical* category, assuning a 3.5% growth for the three months. The average earnings increased from $36.58 in October to $37.02 in December.
Median Inc. (yearly)	4%	600	1/8/26	+9.52% -1.78	1/23/26	1,135.65	1,243.76 1,115.46	http://www.`usdebtclock.org`/ 52,548 8,078 1,614
Unempl. (BLS – in mi)	4%	600	1/8/26	+4.55%	1/26*	530.25	530.25	`http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000`/ 4.4
Official (DC – in mi)	2%	300	1/8/26	+32.84% -0.39	1/23/26	197.74	134.78 196.97	http://www.`usdebtclock.org`/ 7,914 11,611 945
Unofficl. (DC – in mi)	2%	300	1/8/26	+55.50% -0.73	1/23/26	234.12	129.94 232.42	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 14,640 26,375 747
Workforce Participation Number Percent	2%	300	1/8/26	+6.560% +0.069 -0.683% -0.119	1/23/26	298.51	296.47 298.15	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ In 164,040 174,801 4,153 Out 103,303 111,896 3,393 Total: 267,343 286,697 267,846 61.359 60.97 61.286
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	1/8/26	+0.16%	1/26*	150.95	150.95	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.40
OUTGO	(15%)
Total Inflation	7%	1050	1/8/26	+0.4%	10/25*	927.45	927.45	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.3 NC NC *
Food	2%	300	1/8/26	+0.5%	10/25*	262.59	262.59	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.2
Gasoline	2%	300	1/8/26	+1.9%	10/25*	255.11	255.11	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +4.1
Medical Costs	2%	300	1/8/26	-0.1%	10/25*	274.20	274.20	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.3
Shelter	2%	300	1/8/26	+0.4%	10/25*	250.63	250.63	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.2
WEALTH								*The CPI Latest Numbers page is temporarily disabled. BLS could not collect October, 2025 reference period survey data for CPI due to a lapse in appropriations.
Dow Jones Index	2%	300	1/8/26	-0.12%	1/23/26	381.41	380.96 380.96	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 49,442.44 49,384.01
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	1/8/26	+1.073% -1.445%	1/23/26	127.62 264.86	127.62 127.62 264.86 264.86	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M): 4.13 Valuations (K): 409.2
Millionaires (New Category)	1%	150	1/8/26	+0.89%	1/23/26	135.05	117.71 136.25	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 23,974 7,109 4,006
Paupers (New Category)	1%	150	1/8/26	+0.074%	1/23/26	135.44	147.54 135.34	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 36,670 40,267 6,697

GOVERNMENT	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	1/8/26	+0.30%	1/23/26	466.03	560.34 467.43	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 5,337 6,417 353
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	1/8/26	+0.11%	1/23/26	293.86	273.23 293.53	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,062 7,590 070
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	1/8/26	+0.17%	1/23/26	350.54	313.18 349.93	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 38,591 43,206 658
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	1/8/26	+0.22%	1/23/26	374.77	308.90 373.95	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 106,136 128,769 370

TRADE	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	1/8/26	+0.26%	1/23/26	259.20	202.47 258.52	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 9,351 11,972 375
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	1/8/26	+4.39%	1/26*	187.95	187.95	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 302.0
Imports (in billions))	1%	150	1/8/26	+3.23%	1/26*	155.68	155.68	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 331.4
Trade Surplus/Deficit (blns.)	1%	150	1/8/26	-79.59%	1/26*	482.34	482.34	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 29.4

SOCIAL INDICES		(40%)						-21.17
ACTS of MAN	(12%)
World Affairs	3%	450	1/8/26	nc	1/23/26	470.55	470.55	USA seizes 7^th Venezuelan oil tanker. French fry Macron puts on blue glasses and says “we need respect, not bullies.”
War and terrorism	2%	300	1/8/26	+0.1%	1/23/26	285.44	285.73	U.S. kills ISIS leader in Syria. “60 Minutes” produces, cancels, brings back expose of Salvadorean torture prison CECOT as prison riots flare in in Guatemala and Texas detainee “commits suicide”. Minnesota ICE chief throws gas grenades at protesters,
Politics	3%	450	1/8/26	-0.2%	1/23/26	459.30	458.38	Back to work for weary Epstein files readers, tackling over 30M pages of documents anew. Escalating political violence sees ICE dragging an elderly man out of the wrong house in underwear and doing backwards goose step while partisans brawl in Minneapolis over accusations of replacement by Somalians and leftists invade a church in nearby St. Paul to attack ICEman pastor (who’s not there).
Economics	3%	450	1/8/26	+0.1%	1/23/26	431.79	432.22	Feddie Powell appears to stagger to finish his term as mortgage rates drop from 7 to 6% but housing shortage and unemployment still afflict – can somebody marry the twain?
Crime	1%	150	1/8/26	-0.1%	1/23/26	207.46	207.25	Judge and wife shot in Indiana, authorities comb through his old, cold cases for vengeanterians. Two cops shot in Portland (Oregon), four more (one killed) at historic New Orleans Dooky Chase restaurant. Students returning to Brown after shooting.
ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	1/8/26	-0.3%	1/23/26	281.95	281.10	Massive winter storms in 46 states will bring snow, ice, traffic jams and crashes, plane delays and tumbling trees and power lines.
Disasters	3%	450	1/8/26	-0.2%	1/23/26	462.64	461.71	Spanish train crash (above) leaves “pieces of people”) on the tracks. And then has another. Five more skiers killed in Austrian avalanche while Australian sharks run wild on summer surfers and dingoes eat a Canadian tourist.
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX		(15%)
Science, Tech, Education	4%	600	1/8/26	nc	1/23/26	614.91	614.91	Rare Northen Lights dips south to Gulf of America. NASA conducting final tests before Artemis 2 moon circling in February while Vegas is firing casino croupiers and replacing them with robots. Detroit auto expo features gas guzzling trucks and SUVs, de-emphasizing EVs. DoE goes TACO on garnishing student debtors for the time being but serial arsonists ares burning day care centers in Australia and Alabama.
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	1/8/26	-0.1%	1/23/26	674.39	673.72	Pioneering female Governors Sherrill and Spanberger sworn in in Jersey and Virginia. Astronaut Suni Williams retires.
Health	4%	600	1/8/26	-0.1%	1/23/26	417.97	417.55	TV doctors warn that flu and measles are spiking. Tara Narula authors “Resilience” (the key to which is limiting stress hormones). Trump says that America should bring back insane asylums. While athletes train for the Winter Olympics in Italy, health recalls include Genova canned fish, salmonellic supergreens, fiery treadmills and “angry orange stain remover” infested with bacteria.
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	1/8/26	+0.1%	1/23/26	482.08	482.56	The courts are packed with old cases (Mantione, Routh, Charlie Kirk, Lively)... and new... actors Timothy Busfield (with Little Housewife Melissa Gilbert standing by her man) and Kiefer Sutherland, singer Julio Iglesias). SCOTUS and the lesser courts return from vacation to deal with the issues of the day – a judge in Virginia redlights gumment seizure of WashPost journalist’s notes, but the Supremes affirm ICE use of gas grenades against ICE protesters. Prince Harry returns to England for his Daily Mail suit, joined by other angry celebs like Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley
CULTURAL and MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS			(6%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	1/8/26	+0.1%	1/23/26	578.02	578.60	Indiana wins NCAA football crown with close victory over Miami. NFL conference finals Sunday pit Rams and Seahawks, Pats v. Broncos. SuperBowl Sixty will open with local SF band Green Day, Bad Bunny at halftime. In busy awards week “Sinners” tops Oscar nominations – see them all here. Taylor Swift is elected to songwriters’ HoF along with K.I.S.S. and Walter Afanasieff (“All I Want for Christmas is You”). Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones elected to MLB HoF. RIP: fashimeticist Valentino (clothier to celebrities from A(nne Hathaway) to Z(endaya) including Sophia Loren, Paris Hilton and Jackie Oh; child star Kianna Underwood in Brooklyn hit & run, Jim Irsay (Indianapolis Colts’ owner) in suspected ketamine overdose and “Lion King” animator Roger Allers
Miscellaneous incidents	4%	450	1/8/26	+0.1%	1/23/26	546.71	547.26	“Lion King” overtaken by “Zootopia 2” at $1.7 to $1.6B total box office (but money was worth less a decade ago). Superkid Brooklyn Beckham complains that his famous parents are mean to his fiancée... boo hoo! Liza Minneli cuts AI rap album. Veep Vance and wife Usha expecting their 4^th baby.

The Don Jones Index for the week of January 16^th through January 22^nd , 2026 was DOWN 22.84 points

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action againth parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

ATTACHMENT ONE – FROM USA TODAY

ICY GREENLAND IS ANYTHING BUT GREEN. HOW DID IT GET THAT NAME?

By Doyle Rice Jan. 17, 2026, 6:02 a.m. ET

The mostly icy island of Greenland has been a part of a centuries-long marketing campaign, resulting in a puzzling name with a fascinating history.

The Danish territory is again in the news as President Donald Trump says Greenland should become part of the United States.

But don't be confused: The island is anything but green. Greenland is mostly covered by a massive ice sheet, as it has been for the better part of the past several millennia.

The story of Greenland's name weaves together sly marketing, climate change and the Vikings. While Erik the Red selected the name in hopes that it would attract more people to the icy island, now the island is actually getting (a little) more green as its ice sheet melts.

Why does Trump want Greenland?

GREENLAND’S MARKETING GIMMICK

"The origin of Greenland’s name is the result of pure commercial marketing," said Arizona State University geography professor Randall Cerveny, in an email to USA TODAY.

"In one of the Icelandic Sagas (their preserved historical documents dating back a thousand years), it is written that the Icelandic discoverer of Greenland, Erik the Red, 'left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name.'"

According to Discover Iceland, "Erik the Red wanted more people to settle there, so thought if it had a pleasant-sounding name people would be more likely to move there."

That was around 1000 AD, Cerveny said.

However, in the island's native language, the name of the island is Kalaallit Nunaat, or "land of the Kalaallit." The Kalaallit are the native Inuit who inhabit the territory's western region, Cerveny said.

GREENLAND HASN'T ALWAYS BEEN THIS ICY

One twist in the Greenland naming saga: The island likely wasn't quite as icy when it was named.

While it's been mostly icy for millennia, Greenland experienced localized greening during the Medieval Warm Period (around 900-1300 AD) when Vikings settled there.

But even at the height of the Medieval Warm Period, the vast majority of Greenland was still ice-covered, as much as 80%.

Now, new research published in 2025 said that because of global warming, Greenland’s ice sheet is melting fast – and is being replaced by vegetation.

Indeed, parts of Greenland are becoming green again for the first time since the Vikings visited nearly 1,000 years ago, according to study co-author Jonathan Carrivick, an Earth scientist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

And where there was once snow and ice just a few decades ago, there are now areas of shrub, along with barren rock and wetlands, the 2024 study reported.

An estimated 11,000 square miles of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers have melted over the past three decades, the study reports.

Overall, the total area of ice loss in the past 30 years is slightly greater than the size of Massachusetts and represents about 1.6% of Greenland’s total ice and glacier cover.

ICELAND’S NAME ADDS TO THE CONFUSION

Interestingly, neighboring Iceland was named by Vikings for actually being icy, even though Greenland is arguably far more desolate.

One of the Icelandic Sagas declares that the name of Iceland originated from Flóki Vilgerðarson, the first Viking to intentionally travel and stay on Iceland around 850 AD.

The two names really don't match climatological reality.

For example, Greenland set the coldest recorded temperature in the Northern Hemisphere at an unimaginably cold 93.3 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

It's also covered by a massive ice sheet that's some two miles thick at some points. Meanwhile, Iceland ‒ though it has glaciers ‒ benefits from warmer ocean currents and is far more habitable and "green" around populated lowlands.

DO YOU KNOW HOW BIG GREENLAND IS?

Greenland covers more than 836,000 square miles ‒ three times the size of Texas, with about 80% covered by a massive ice cap.

The limitations of flat maps mean the island appears on paper smaller or larger than it is. On some maps, it looks similar in size to Africa.

Maps don’t show Greenland’s true size. Here’s how big it actually is.

Why is this? Greenland looks huge on some maps, especially standard Mercator projections, because it's near the North Pole, and these maps stretch polar regions to fit the spherical Earth onto a flat surface, making high-latitude landmasses appear disproportionately huge compared to their actual size.

Contributing: Michelle Del Rey and Stephen J. Beard

ATTACHMENT TWO – FROM MILITARY.COM

WHEN U.S. TROOPS FOUGHT NAZIS IN THE ARCTIC: THE FORGOTTEN BATTLE FOR GREENLAND

By Allen Frazier Published October 13, 2025 at 2:47pm ET

When Nazi Germany overran Denmark in April 1940, the Danish colony of Greenland was suddenly cut off from its government. Under an April 9, 1941, defense agreement, the United States assumed responsibility for Greenland’s security. The pact led to one of America’s earliest overseas deployments of World War II—months before Pearl Harbor—as U.S. forces built bases, guarded resource mines, and waged a covert campaign against German weather stations along Greenland’s coast.

DENMARK TURNS TO AMERICA

Within months, Army engineers and Coast Guardsmen began arriving along the west coast, surveying sites for airfields and communications posts. The largest, Bluie West One at Narsarsuaq, became a critical refueling stop for aircraft that later crossed from the United States to Britain and North Africa. Before long-range bombers and transports could span the ocean in a single flight, Greenland’s icy airstrips provided a vital layover for thousands of planes headed to combat.

Members of the Edelweiss II weather station in north-eastern Greenland taken prisoner by American soldiers, October 4 1944 (Wikimedia Commons).

AN ISLAND AT WAR

Greenland’s strategic importance wasn’t just its geography. Beneath its ice sheets was one of the Allies’ most valuable resources: cryolite, a mineral mined near Ivigtut that was essential to aluminum production. Without cryolite, large-scale aircraft manufacturing would have been impossible. Protecting the mine became an early American priority, and Coast Guard cutters soon patrolled its approaches to keep German submarines and raiders away.

The Germans were quick to see Greenland’s importance in another realm. Arctic weather systems moved eastward across the Atlantic, influencing everything from convoy schedules to bombing raids over Europe. Germany’s military meteorologists hoped to install hidden outposts along Greenland’s remote eastern coast to transmit forecasts back to the Reich. If successful, those stations could give U-boats and the Luftwaffe a valuable edge in combat.

To counter them, the U.S. established the Greenland Patrol, a Coast Guard command under Capt. Edward “Iceberg” Smith. Its mission was to defend the coastline, escort supply ships, and hunt for enemy weather parties. The patrol’s ships operated in near-polar darkness, breaking ice with reinforced hulls and explosives while battling conditions that were some of the harshest on Earth.

THE BATTLE FOR GREENLAND

The first action of the Greenland campaign came months before Pearl Harbor. On Sept. 12, 1941, the USCG cutter Northland seized the Norwegian sealer Buskø, a ship suspected of supporting a German radio team. The Americans captured the crew and destroyed the transmitter, marking one of the earliest U.S. naval actions of the war.

In 1943, actual combat reached the arctic. Members of the Danish-led Northeast Greenland Sledge Patrol, made up of Danes, Norwegians, and Greenlanders with their dog-sleds, discovered boot prints leading to a German installation on Sabine Island. “Footprints—human footprints—boots, with heels!” one patrolman shouted when they found the trail. None of the team wore actual boots with heels on them, alerting them to enemy spies in the area. The team found a cabin stocked with supplies and Nazi uniforms.

Soon after, German troops attacked their base at Eskimonæs, killing Danish Corporal Eli Knudsen and forcing the survivors into a desperate retreat across the snow. In the chaos, they had to leave behind their dogs and most of their supplies, forcing them to suffer a 400-mile trek through the harsh terrain. Lieutenant Hermann Ritter, the officer in charge of the German forces, was later captured and turned over to American authorities after an exhausting sled journey through subzero storms.

Using reports from the Sledge Patrols, American planes bombed the German base on Greenland, codenamed Holzauge. U.S. Coast Guard cutters later landed to destroy the German camp. They found it abandoned, though they captured one German who was left behind to man the station. Danish troops later raided another German weather station, destroying it and leaving a German officer dead.

In October 1944, USCGS Eastwind seized the German weather station on Little Koldewey and took twelve German prisoners. Eleven days later, she boarded and captured the trawler Externsteine, taking seventeen more prisoners and ending Germany’s weather operations on the coast. These were the only direct engagements between American and German troops on Greenland.

LEGACY

When Germany surrendered in 1945, the United States had built 17 installations across Greenland, from weather stations and supply depots to full airfields. Although the skirmishes were brief and minor, several casualties occurred on both sides, in addition to the horrid conditions troops faced on the island.

After the war, Denmark regained control over the island, but several U.S. bases remained active through the Cold War, such as Thule Air Base, still one of America’s northernmost military bases. The island’s wartime experiences also set the stage for later debates over the its value.

In 2019, President Donald Trump highlighted the island’s strategic importance when he expressed his interest in buying the island. He told reporters, “Essentially, it’s a large real estate deal.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dismissed the idea and outright rejected Trump’s proposals. Denmark pledged $8.5-million in investments on the island to deter the U.S. Greenland’s Prime Minister, Múte Bourup Egede, noted the island’s future “will be decided by Greenland.”

Greenland’s wartime experience rarely makes it into history stories of World War II. Nevertheless, the American campaign in Greenland prevented weather intelligence for the Germans, secured resources for the Allied war effort, and gave the Allies a vital supply hub for offensives in Europe.

ATTACHMENT THREE – FROM CBS

MAPS SHOW WHY GREENLAND IS SO IMPORTANT AS THE ARCTIC WARMS

By Tucker Reals Updated on: January 13, 2026 / 4:41 AM EST / CBS News

President Trump has said repeatedly that he wants the United States to control Greenland, refusing to take military action off the table and declaring that he will make the semi-autonomous Danish territory part of the U.S. "one way or the other."

Mr. Trump says the U.S. needs to control the vast, largely frozen island that sits mostly inside the Arctic Circle for security reasons, accusing China and Russia of trying to take it over instead.

Greenland's own democratically elected leaders have rejected any U.S. takeover, with the island's government calling it something they "cannot accept under any circumstance."

There are a number of reasons why Greenland is of such intense interest to the Trump administration, including its natural resources — reserves of oil, natural gas and rare earth minerals. But the physical location of the island on the map — and the sea ice melting around its borders — is also of vital importance.

NEW ROUTES AROUND THE GLOBE

Melting Arctic sea ice has created more opportunity to use northern shipping routes — allowing logistics companies to save millions of dollars in fuel by taking much shorter paths between Asia and Western Europe and the United States. Northern routes were long only passable in warmer months.

There are a couple primary routes through the Arctic becoming more viable, the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which follows Russia's roughly 15,000-mile northern border. That path doesn't bring ships too close to Greenland, and Russia and China have agreed to develop the route together, and have been making greater use of it in recent years.

A Russian commercial vessel, aided by an icebreaker, first traversed the NSR in the winter in February 2021, proving it was possible.

The other route, called the Northwest Passage, comes much closer to Greenland's coastal waters and is more likely the path the Trump administration is concerned with.

The other, longstanding way to get goods from ports in Russia or the manufacturing powerhouses of East Asia is to go south. But that course, through Egypt's Suez Canal, is about 3,000 miles longer.

According to the Arctic Institute, compared to the Suez Canal route, the Northern Sea Route can save shippers as much as 50% in costs, considering fuel and other expenses, by reducing the distance from Japan to Europe, for instance, to only about 10 days compared to the roughly 22 it would take to sail around the southern tip of Africa and then through the Suez Canal.

A 2024 analysis by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies also said the northern route would shave about 10 days of a similar journey from Shanghai, China, to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

As sea temperatures continue warming and winter ice cover shrinks, shipping traffic via the north is likely to increase, so control over that passage — and the long Greenlandic coastline that it skirts — will be of greater importance.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shared graphs in 2022 predicting the new routes that would become available to regular tankers around Greenland over the coming decades.

Graphics shared by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2022 show the sea routes through the Arctic that are expected to become viable to regular vessels (in blue) and polar-class vessels (in red) around Greenland over the coming decades.NOAA

NOAA's modeling shows a dramatic increase in viable journeys for both polar-class vessels fortified to forge through sea ice, and normal open water-faring ships. The agency even predicts that by 2059, it will likely be possible for a polar-class vessel to sail the most direct route, right across the North Pole, as the formation of sea ice reduces further.

See maps here

ATTACHMENT FOUR – FROM GUK

HOW A BILLIONAIRE WITH INTERESTS IN GREENLAND ENCOURAGED TRUMP TO ACQUIRE THE TERRITORY

US president’s friend Ronald Lauder – who first proposed Arctic expansion – is now making deals in the island

Tom Burgis Thu 15 Jan 2026 07.00 EST

One day during his first term, Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. “Trump called me down to the Oval Office,” John Bolton, national security adviser in 2018, told the Guardian. “He said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland.”

All the president’s millions: how the Trumps are turning the presidency into riches

It was an extraordinary proposal. And it originated from a longtime friend of the president who would go on to acquire business interests in the Danish territory.

The businessman, Bolton learned, was Ronald Lauder. Heir to a makeup fortune – the global cosmetics brand Estée Lauder – he had known Trump, a fellow wealthy New Yorker, for more than 60 years.

Bolton said he discussed the Greenland proposition with Lauder. After the billionaire’s intervention, a White House team began to explore ways to increase US sway in the vast Arctic territory controlled by Denmark.

Trump’s renewed pursuit of Lauder’s idea during his second term is typical of how the president operates, Bolton said. “Bits of information that he hears from friends, he takes them as truth and you can’t shake his opinion.”

The proposal seems to have stirred Trump’s imperialist ambitions: eight years on, he is mulling not just buying Greenland but perhaps taking it by force.

Like many of those around the president, Lauder’s policy suggestions appear to intersect with his business interests. As Trump has ratcheted up his threats to seize Greenland, Lauder has acquired commercial holdings there. Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to demand a share of the war-torn country’s resources.

Lauder has said he met Trump in the 1960s when they went to the same prestigious business school. After working for the family cosmetics business, Lauder served under Ronald Reagan at the Pentagon, then as ambassador to Austria, before running unsuccessfully for mayor of New York in 1989.

When Trump won the presidency in 2016, Lauder donated $100,000 to the Trump Victory fundraising committee. When Trump’s sanity was questioned in 2018, Lauder called him “a man of incredible insight and intelligence”.

That same year, Lauder said he was assisting Trump with “some of the most complex diplomatic challenges imaginable”. This seems to have included sowing the idea of Arctic expansion. The following year, the Wall Street Journal revealed Trump’s interest in Greenland. Denmark’s rulers expressed outrage. Trump responded by tweeting an image of a golden Trump Tower looming over a village, beside the caption: “I promise not to do this to Greenland!”

‘A treasure trove of rare-earth elements’

‘Trump’s Greenland concept was never absurd – it was strategic,’ Lauder wrote. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Trump’s fixation with Greenland endured, as did Lauder’s. Last February, shortly after Trump returned to the White House, Lauder leapt to his defence when the president publicly contemplated a military takeover of the world’s largest island.

With Greenland at “the epicentre of great-power competition”, Lauder argued, the US should seek a “strategic partnership”. He added: “I have worked closely with Greenland’s business and government leaders for years to develop strategic investments there.”

Since Lauder steered Trump’s attention to Greenland in 2018, as first reported by the US journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book The Divider, the cosmetics billionaire seems to have ploughed lots of his own money into the Arctic territory.

Danish corporate records show that a company with a New York address and unnamed owners has in recent months bought into Greenland.

One of its ventures is exporting “luxury” springwater from an island in Baffin Bay. When a Danish newspaper reported in December that Lauder was among the investors, it quoted a Greenlandic businessman involved in the endeavour. “Lauder and his colleagues in the investor group have a very good understanding of and access to the luxury market,” he said.

This group of investors is also reportedly seeking to generate hydroelectric power from Greenland’s biggest lake for an aluminium smelter.

It is unclear what effect a US takeover of Greenland – by invasion, purchase or persuasion – might have on Lauder’s commercial interests there.

Following Trump’s comments – in the aftermath of sending troops to capture the ruler of Venezuela – that the US needed Greenland “very badly”, Denmark’s prime minister warned that military action by one Nato member against another would break the alliance.

Trump appears unmoved. “We’re going to be doing something with Greenland,” he said last week, “either the nice way or the more difficult way.” After a White House meeting on Wednesday, the Danish foreign minster, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said: “We didn’t manage to change the American position. It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering Greenland.”

A DEAL TO EXPLOIT UKRAINE’S MINERALS

Lauder’s apparent involvement in shaping US policy adds to mounting questions about conflicts of interest during Trump’s second term and the apparent self-enrichment of those close to the president. Trump’s two elder sons, Don Jr and Eric, have been on a global moneymaking campaign from Vietnam to Gibraltar.

They insist there is a “huge wall” between their business activities and their father’s position as the most powerful man alive. Trump’s spokesperson has said: “Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.” But foreign rulers have facilitated the enrichment of the first family, while sometimes seemingly securing the president’s favour.

Lauder, though, appeared for a time to have broken with his old friend.

In 2022, while he was out of office, Trump hosted the far-right agitator Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago club. Lauder, who heads the World Jewish Congress, joined the condemnation. “Nick Fuentes is a virulent antisemite and Holocaust denier plain and simple,” he said. “It is inconceivable that anyone would associate with him.”

But once Trump regained the White House, Lauder resumed financial support. In March 2025 he gave $5m to Maga Inc, a fundraising operation for Trump’s movement. The following month, Lauder was reportedly among the guests at an exclusive candlelit dinner with the president. Tickets were $1m each, payable to Maga Inc.

By then, Lauder’s business interests once again appeared to be overlapping with Trump administration policy.

A leaked November 2023 letter sent by the head of TechMet, a mining company, to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, named Lauder as part of a consortium hoping to exploit a lithium deposit in the war-torn country.

Lauder said at the time that he had not discussed Ukrainian minerals with Trump himself but had “raised the issue with stakeholders in the US and Ukraine for many years up to the present day”. Leading Republicans joined a campaign for the US to gain a hold on Ukraine’s prodigious resources. Trump became its loudest proponent.

Weeks after Lauder’s Maga Inc donations, Washington and Kyiv signed a deal to jointly exploit Ukraine’s minerals. It went some way to preserving Trump’s support for Ukraine following his televised Oval Office tirade against Zelenskyy for what he deemed insufficient gratitude for US backing.

The lithium deposit was the first to be tendered under the minerals deal. This month, the Lauder consortium reportedly won it. TechMet, the company leading the consortium, declined to comment, as did Lauder. His Greenland business partners and the White House did not respond when contacted by the Guardian.

ATTACHMENT FIVE – FROM GUK

TAKEAWAYS (below)

Donald Trump says he may put a tariff on ‘countries that don’t go along with Greenland’ – as it happened

Trump threatens tariffs against those who oppose him taking Greenland

Updated 1d ago

1d ago

The day so far

1d ago

Trump threatens tariff on 'countries that don't go along with Greenland'

1d ago

'Are there real, pressing threats to security of Greenland from China and Russia? No, not today,' US senator says as he hopes for 'lowering temperature' of talks about territory

1d ago

Greenland needs to be viewed as ally, not asset, Republican US senator Murkowski says

1d ago

Anger in Iceland over incoming US ambassador’s ‘52nd state’ joke

1d ago

Meloni wants Nato to develop 'coordinated presence' in Arctic to prevent 'interference'

1d ago

'Deal should and will be made' on Greenland, US envoy says, as he plans to visit in March

1d ago

Ukraine's security guarantees, prosperity deal with US could be signed in Davos, Zelenskyy says

1d ago

Italian defence minister dismisses calls to put European troops in Greenland

1d ago

Trump's Greenland comments act as distraction from his woes in US, senator says

1d ago

Trump watches US polls and Americans oppose use of force in Greenland, senator says

1d ago

Trump's rhetoric on Greenland does 'real damage' to alliances, US national security and benefits Russia's Putin, US senator says

1d ago

'Millions of Americans deeply concerned' about Trump's rhetoric on Greenland, senior Democrat senator says

1d ago

France warns any US Greenland move could endanger trade relationship with EU

1d ago

Russia says Greenland is Danish as it laments 'extraordinary' clash over territory

1d ago

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Morning opening: Greenland working group off to rocky start

By Lucy Campbell (now); Jakub Krupa (earlier) Fri 16 Jan 2026 11.52 EST

From 1d ago

10.46 EST

Trump threatens tariff on 'countries that don't go along with Greenland'

Speaking at the White House event, Donald Trump just threatened to impose tariffs on countries that don’t support his plan to control Greenland.

Referring to the tariffs he slapped on pharmaceutical imports from the EU as part of his efforts to lower drug prices in the US, Trump added:

I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security.

Updated at 11.04 EST

1d ago11.50 EST

The day so far

· Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that don’t support his plan to control Greenland. Speaking at a White House event about the tariffs he slapped on pharmaceutical imports from the EU as part of his efforts to lower drug prices in the US, Trump added: “I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security.”

· It came as Trump’s special envoy to Greenland said a deal for Washington to take over the island . Jeff Landry added that he planned to visit Greenland in March and that the US president “is serious” about acquiring the largely autonomous territory, which is part of the Danish kingdom.

· Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of 11 members of the US House and Senate – including Republican senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski and Democratic senator Chris Coons – travelled to Copenhagen to meet the leaders of Denmark and Greenland, Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, in a show of solidarity against Trump’s threats of military intervention. Murkowski told a press conference the purpose of the visit was to send a clear message from the Congress that “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset.”

· Thousands of people have after Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland reportedly joked that the Nordic country should become the 52nd US state. “We heard that former Rep Billy Long, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland, joked to members on the floor last night that Iceland will be the 52nd state and he’ll be governor,” Politico . In a statement to the Guardian, Iceland’s foreign ministry said it had contacted the US embassy for clarification. “The ministry for foreign affairs contacted the US embassy in Iceland to verify the veracity of the alleged comments,” it said.

Updated at 11.52 EST

1d ago10.46 EST

Trump threatens tariff on 'countries that don't go along with Greenland'

Speaking at the White House event, Donald Trump just threatened to impose tariffs on countries that don’t support his plan to control Greenland.

Referring to the tariffs he slapped on pharmaceutical imports from the EU as part of his efforts to lower drug prices in the US, Trump added:

I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security.

Updated at 11.04 EST

1d ago10.14 EST

Donald Trump is hosting a roundtable discussion on rural healthcare at the White House, due to begin shortly. He often takes questions from media at these events and Greenland may well come up. I’ll bring you the latest here.

1d ago10.03 EST

That’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, but Lucy Campbell is here to keep you up to date for the rest of the day.

1d ago09.37 EST

'Are there real, pressing threats to security of Greenland from China and Russia? No, not today,' US senator says as he hopes for 'lowering temperature' of talks about territory

Democratic senator Chris Coons says the visit was mostly to listen to Denmark and Greenland’s comments, and relay them back to the US.

He says:

“Are there real, pressing threats to the security of Greenland from China and Russia? No, not today.

Are there real opportunities for us to partner through Nato to contribute to Arctic security? Yes, and if we ask respectfully and plan together, we can achieve that goal.

Are there opportunities to develop sustainably the resources of Greenland, if that’s of interest to American companies? Yes.

And so there’s a lot of rhetoric, but there’s not a lot of reality in the current discussion in Washington. And part of the point of this trip is to have a bipartisan group of members of Congress listen respectfully to our friends, our trusted allies and partners here in Denmark and from Greenland, and to go back to the United States and those perspectives so that we can lower the temperature and have a more constructive dialogue about the best path forward.”

And that concludes the press conference.

1d ago09.33 EST

Greenland needs to be viewed as ally, not asset, Republican US senator Murkowski says

Republican senator Murkowski says the purpose of the visit was to send a clear message from the Congress that “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset.”

She says:

“I think it is important to underscore that when you ask the American people whether or not they think it is a good idea for the United States to acquire Greenland, the vast majority, some 75% will say we do not think that that is a good idea. This senator from Alaska does not think it is a good idea.”

She says the US delegation “heard about the concerns and the fears directly from the people of Greenland,” and on “more broadly what this means, not just to to to Greenland, but to the Nato alliance.”

1d ago09.30 EST

Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a Greenlandic politician in the Danish parliament, highlights “the pressure that people are feeling back home in ,” as she thanks the US delegation for their visit.

Separately, Pipaluk Lynge, a Greenlandic MP, also says that it was important to attend this meeting to have an open dialogue with US lawmakers, similarly stressing Greenland’s position as an ally in Nato.

1d ago09.28 EST

US Democratic senator Chris Coons opens the press conference as he says the 10-member bipartisan bicameral delegation from the US wanted to highlight the value of the US-Danish alliance, and to “express our gratitude for the sacrifice of Danes, who served and fought and died alongside Americans when we were attacked 25 years ago.”

“We spoke about the value of Nato and the commitment to respecting the core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and self determination, and we spoke with clarity about the importance that the people of Greenland make their decisions about their future.”

Conservative senator Lisa Murkowski joins in with similar words, stressing “a strong and a continuing relationship” between the countries “over decades.”

She talks about “so constructive, important dialogue that is ongoing now and will move forward.”

1d ago09.20 EST

We are expecting to hear from the US delegation visiting Copenhagen again pretty soon, as they are just wrapping their meeting with parliamentary colleagues from Denmark and .

I will bring you the key lines from them here.

1d ago08.43 EST

Anger in Iceland over incoming US ambassador’s ‘52nd state’ joke

Ashifa Kassam

Separately, thousands of people have signed a petition expressing anger after Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland reportedly joked that the Nordic country should become the 52nd US state.

Billy Long, a former US representative for Missouri, apologised for the remarks, saying they ‘should not be taken seriously’. Photograph: Greg Nash/AP

On Wednesday, hours before top officials from Greenland and Denmark with the US in the hope of warding off Trump’s threats to seize the Arctic island, the news outlet Politico said it had heard of musings regarding another Nordic island.

“We heard that former Rep Billy Long, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland, joked to members on the floor last night that Iceland will be the 52nd state and he’ll be governor,” Politico .

The reaction in Reykjavík was swift. In a statement to the Guardian, Iceland’s foreign ministry said it had contacted the US embassy for clarification. “The ministry for foreign affairs contacted the US embassy in Iceland to verify the veracity of the alleged comments,” it said.

In a petition calling on Iceland’s foreign minister, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, to reject Long as ambassador to the country, critics said:

“These words, spoken by Billy Long, whom Donald Trump has nominated as ambassador to Iceland, may have been said in jest. Still, they are offensive to Iceland and the Icelandic people, who have had to fight for their freedom and have always been a friend to the United States,”

Within hours of its launch, more than 3,200 people had signed the petition, backing the call for the US to “nominate another person who shows greater respect for Iceland and the Icelandic people”.

On Wednesday Long reportedly apologised for the remarks in an interview with Arctic Today, a news website that covers the region. The outlet quoted him as saying the comments had been made in jest as others were joking about Jeff Landry, Trump’s US special envoy to Greenland.

“There was nothing serious about that, I was with some people, who I hadn’t met for three years, and they were kidding about Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland and they started joking about me and if anyone took offence to it, then I apologise,” .

Though Long said he could understand why the comments would have set off a reaction, he was adamant they were a joke and should not be taken seriously.

Anger in Iceland over incoming US ambassador’s ‘52nd state’ joke

1d ago08.08 EST

US senators are now arriving for their meeting with Danish and Greenlandic colleagues at the Danish parliament.

Democratic senator Peter Welch says the US delegation is in “to reassert our appreciation for the role Denmark plays in our national security,” as he calls for “a stronger, not a weaker, Nato.”

“So this is just an expression by a bipartisan group of members of Congress that we appreciate Denmark, we need Denmark, and we support a continuation of our cooperative relationship,” he says.

1d ago07.38 EST

Meloni wants Nato to develop 'coordinated presence' in Arctic to prevent 'interference'

We have a bit more on that Italian Arctic strategy I mentioned earlier ( ), with the country’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni urging Nato to develop “a coordinated presence” in the Arctic region to prevent tensions and respond to “interference by other actors.”

Reuters reported that in a letter read during the presentation of an Italian government paper on the Arctic, Meloni said the region was becoming increasingly important due to the development of new sea routes and its huge “energy and mineral resources”.

The Italian policy document pointed to Russia’s renewed focus on the Arctic, which included a buildup of its military presence there. It also flagged China’s attempt to raise its Arctic profile as a self-declared “near-Arctic state,” including growing interest in shipping along the Northern Sea Route and closer ties with Moscow that extend to military matters.

1d ago07.09 EST

'Deal should and will be made' on Greenland, US envoy says, as he plans to visit in March

US special envoy to Greenland Jeff Landry told Fox News that he believed a deal could be reached on the territory, with president Trump “serious” about his plans to control Greenland.

“I do believe that there’s a deal that should and will be made once this plays out,” he said.

“I think he’s laid the markers down. He’s told Denmark what he’s looking for, and now it’s a matter of having secretary Rubio and vice-president JD Vance make a deal.”

Landry also said he was planning to visit the Danish semiautonomous territory in March.

1d ago07.06 EST

Ukraine's security guarantees, prosperity deal with US could be signed in Davos, Zelenskyy says

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv that he hoped to sign a deal on the US security guarantees and a prosperity package on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, starting news week.

A Ukrainian delegation is on its way to the US for further talks, he said.

Zelenskyy also added that he hoped to get more clarity from the US on the Russian position on peace talks about ending the Russian aggression against Ukraine, Reuters reported.

1d ago06.35 EST

Italian defence minister dismisses calls to put European troops in Greenland

Meanwhile, Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto does not seem to be convinced about the merits of European military deployments to .

Speaking to journalists, he wondered “what a hundred, two hundred, or three hundred soldiers of any nationality could do” in Greenland. “It sounds like the beginning of a joke.”

In comments quoted by , he said:

“It’s not a competition to see who sends the military around the world.”

He indicated Italy would not send its troops to the territory, and suggested Nato should play a role coordinating different countries’ thinking on the issue.

But a new Italian government paper on the security of the Arctic, expected to be presented later today, will warn that the region has become a threat of intensifying strategic rivalry, with Russian and US interest, Reuters said.

ATTACHMENT SIX – FROM CNN

FOCUS SHIFTS TO GREENLAND AFTER THE US' MILITARY OPERATION IN VENEZUELA

From CNN's Catherine Nicholls

The US’ attack on Venezuela and its capture of ousted President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend drew headlines worldwide and drew international attention - both positive and negative.

Just a few days after the strike, focus has also shifted to Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. The Arctic island’s strategic location between Europe and North America makes it a critical site for the US ballistic missile defense system. Its mineral wealth also aligns with Washington’s ambition to reduce reliance on Chinese exports.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump repeated his claim that his country “need(s) Greenland” from a security perspective.

“We need Greenland … It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said yesterday that the formal position of the Trump administration is that “Greenland should be part of the United States.”

“Nobody’s gonna fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Miller said on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

These remarks came following US military action on foreign soil, and were met with consternation from European allies.

“The current and repeated rhetoric coming from the United States is entirely unacceptable. When the President of the United States speaks of ‘needing Greenland’ and links us to Venezuela and military intervention, it is not only wrong. It is disrespectful,” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen said yesterday.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that there would be consequences should the US try to seize Greenland, saying in televised remarks that “if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II.”

In a joint statement released today, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and Denmark reiterated that “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

CNN’s Rhea Mogul, Kit Maher, Tim Lister and Matthew Chance contributed to this reporting.

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – FROM USA TODAY

GREENLAND'S ONLY US MILITARY BASE IS (QUIETLY) GETTING A MASSIVE UPGRADE

While few details of the exact work at Pituffik have been made public, the improvements come during a time of intense focus on Greenland.

By Trevor Hughes Jan. 15, 2026Updated Jan. 16, 2026, 12:27 p.m. ET

As President Donald Trump continues to insist that the United States must take control of Greenland, federal officials are quietly preparing to pour tens of millions of dollars of upgrades into the sole American military base on the icy Arctic island.

Among the upgrades American military officials are planning are improvements to Pituffik Space Base's two-mile-long runway, a new boat to keep the port clear of icebergs and a slew of facility upgrades, including repairs to the Dundas dining facility. Today, about 150 American military personnel are stationed at the Cold War-era base formerly known at Thule Air Force Base, joined by hundreds of Canadian, Danish and Greenlandic military and contractors.

The base (pronounced bee-doo-FEEK) was renamed in 2023 during the Biden administration to pay homage to the native Greenlandic people and culture. It's home to the northernmost deepwater port run by the Department of War, formally known as the Department of Defense, and Trump sees control of the entire island as key to American security.

"The United States needs Greenland," Trump wrote in a Jan. 14 social media post.

Cold War-era military planners built the base there, with Danish permission, because it's halfway between Moscow and Washington. Greenland is a self-governing country that’s part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is itself a member of NATO, and thus an ally of the United States.

While few details of the exact Pituffik base work have been made public, the improvements come during a time of intense focus on the glacier-covered island where temperatures routinely drop to -50 during the polar night darkness, which lasts more than three months a year. The base is on the island's western edge, close to Canada's Baffin Bay area, and about 1,000 miles from the island's capital of Nuuk.

None of the base improvements, which USA TODAY reviewed via federal purchasing systems, appear to signal a significant increase in size or change in mission. The runway upgrades, for instance, include improvements to the landing and taxiway lighting systems, a critical component given the facility is in darkness for long stretches but depends heavily on resupply flights from the U.S. mainland.

But notes in the contracting materials also reference classified work that might be performed by the U.S. military or specialized contractors.

Several of the projects have not yet been formally awarded to contractors, in part because the logistics of getting materials and people to the base during the short summer construction window. The contracts call for using engineers and other experts licensed in Denmark.

Because the winter dark is so oppressive to some people, the base uses "happy lamps" to simulate the sun and stave off seasonal affective disorder. In the summer, base personnel cover their windows with blackout shades because the sun doesn't set for nearly four months.

U.S. military officials did not return a request for comment on the projects.

Today, Pituffik's stated public mission is to host military personal who coordinate satellite communications and monitor for ballistic missile launches, while also monitoring near-Earth space. Base officials have previously said their systems can detect a piece of metal the size of a softball from 3,000 miles away.

During the Cold War, military planners used Pituffik as a staging point for a test of Project Iceworm, which would have secretly buried nuclear missile silos beneath the Greenland ice sheet. The effort was abandoned after scientists discovered the ice sheets moved faster than expected.

Trump and some military experts argue Greenland will play an increasing role in national security as Russia and China more aggressively explore and patrol Arctic regions. Climate change is weakening the sea ice that typically surrounds Greenland in the winter, allowing more ships to travel the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia via Alaska and the Bering Sea.

Additionally, Greenland has deposits of rare earth minerals used to make smartphones, MRI machines and high-tech weapons systems.

The facility is jointly staffed by the U.S. and Danish military, and the Trump administration last April fired the base commander over comments she made to staff and contractors following a controversial Greenland trip by Vice President JD Vance. White House officials indicated they felt the base commander's message of unity, which she sent to the multinational workers, undermined Trump's position.

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – FROM THE ATLANTIC

TRUMP IS RISKING A GLOBAL CATASTROPHE

His irrational fixation on Greenland could lead to widespread conflict.

By Tom Nichols January 14, 2026

Donald Trump has a lot of odd fixations, both as a person and as a president. He tends to focus his tunnel vision on things he wants: the demolishing of the White House’s East Wing, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. Many of Trump’s quirks are harmless, if unpleasant. (He seems to hate dogs, for example, but no one is forcing him to adopt one.) Some of his ideas, however, are more destructive: His stubborn and ill-informed attachment to tariffs has brought about considerable disorder in the international economy and hurt many of the American industries they were supposed to protect.

But a few of Trump’s obsessions are extraordinarily dangerous, and likely none more so than his determination to seize Greenland from Denmark, a country allied to the United States for more than two centuries. Perhaps because he does not understand how the Mercator projection distorts size on a map, the president thinks that Greenland is “massive” and that it must become part of the United States. If Trump makes good on his recurring threat to use force to gain the island, he would not only blow apart America’s most important alliance; he could set in motion a series of events that could lead to global catastrophe—or even to World War III.

Isaac Stanley-Becker: Denmark’s army chief says he’s ready to defend Greenland

Greenland, of course, is important to the security of the United States—as it is to the entire Atlantic community and to the free world itself. This fact might be new to Trump, but Western strategists have known it for a century or more, which is why the United States has had a military presence in Greenland for decades.

ATTACHMENT NINE – FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

GREENLAND’S FUTURE

Yesterday, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met behind closed doors with the American vice president and the secretary of state. Afterward, the Europeans described a “fundamental disagreement” over what the future of Greenland should be. President Trump keeps insisting the United States should take over the island, and they’re not interested.

Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, told reporters he hoped the three governments could lower the temperature on the debate. “This is actually the very first time where we could sit down at a top political level to discuss it,” he said. He said he understood Trump’s view that Greenland’s future lies with America — or China or Russia. “We share , to some extent, his concerns,” he said. “There’s definitely a new security situation in the Arctic and the High North.”

That morning, the White House had posted a cartoon on X showing Greenland’s supposed paths:

Alongside it, Trump declared that anything less than U.S. control of Greenland was “unacceptable.”

THE VIEW FROM NUUK

How does the saber-rattling play with the 57,000 people who live in Greenland?

Not well, report Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli, who traveled to Nuuk, the capital, to find out. They discovered a kaleidoscope of feelings: shock, anger, confusion, humiliation, insult and, most of all, fear. No one they spoke to wants Greenland to be recolonized, and very few have any interest in joining the United States. One told them she was well aware of the holes in this country’s health care system and its gaping economic inequality.

I talked to Jeffrey about that yesterday. He told me the people he spoke to hated the idea that officials thousands of miles away might decide their fate. And they are worried about changing the way they live:

People here enjoy a highly Scandinavian standard of living, which means free health care, free education and a strong safety net. At the same time, they value their traditions. I can’t tell you how many people we’ve met who still hunt seals and reindeer and love ice fishing and spending hours outside, with their sled dogs or on their snowmobiles.

Jeffrey had just talked to a Greenlander selling secondhand clothes and knickknacks on the street in Nuuk. “Trump really wants it, he keeps saying he wants it, and if he comes what are we going to do?” the guy told him. Then he laughed. His name was Thue Norhsen. Jeffrey asked him if he wanted to become an American. “I like the way things are,” Norhsen said. “I don’t want to give that up.” Jeffrey said it was a refrain he had heard in Greenland over and over again.

A STRATEGIC HUB

The Trump administration wants Greenland for a host of reasons, including its mineral resources, its size and its strategic location near Canada, Europe and even Russia via the Arctic Ocean. Among other things, it’s a good place to keep track of Chinese and Russian naval ships crossing new routes through melted ice. (It’s also a good place, because it’s so close to the North Pole, to track missiles.)

NATO countries like the United States also use those routes and gather intelligence to counter Russia. Trump has repeatedly berated and coerced the organization, demanding that its member nations pay more for defense. Now, his quest to take over Greenland, which as part of the Kingdom of Denmark is already under NATO’s protection, has raised concerns that he will shatter the alliance itself.

Trump said yesterday that NATO “should be leading the way for us to get” Greenland.

That view came with an implied threat: Without American military power, “NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent — Not even close!” he wrote on social media. “They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES.”

But what if Trump seizes the island by force? Then NATO has a different problem. Its founding treaty holds that an attack on one ally in the organization — in this case, Denmark — is an attack on all. An attack on all brings the obligation for each NATO member to respond, though not always with armed force.

In the nearly eight decades of the alliance, no NATO ally has ever attacked another.

More coverage

Denmark announced yesterday that it was increasing its military presence in and around Greenland.
Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet is raising sea levels globally and may be slowing ocean currents, which could affect weather patterns.

ATTACHMENT TEN – FROM THE HILL

MILLER AMID GREENLAND PUSH: NATIONS NOT ENTITLED TO TERRITORIES ‘THEY CANNOT DEFEND’

by Sarah Davis - 01/17/26 11:38 AM ET

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller on Friday doubled down on the Trump administration’s argument that acquiring Greenland is “essential” for U.S. national security.

“The new domain of international competition is going to be polar competition,” Miller told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, seeking to justify President Trump’s proposal to take over the Arctic island, a semi-autonomous Danish territory. “That is where more and more resources are being spent by our nation’s adversaries and rivals is the ability to control movement, navigation, lanes of travel in the polar and arctic region.”

He added that because Denmark “cannot defend” Greenland, citing weaknesses in their military and economy, that it should not have claims to the land.

“To control a territory, you have to be able to defend a territory, improve a territory, inhabit a territory,” Miller said. “Denmark has failed at every single one of these tests.”

The president’s political adviser claimed the U.S. was already on the hook to spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” to defend Denmark as a NATO ally.

“It’s a raw deal, it’s an unfair deal, and most importantly, it’s unfair to the American taxpayer, who has subsidized all of Europe’s defense for generations now,” he told “Hannity.”

Miller previously suggested that “nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”

Democrats and many Republicans in Congress have balked at the Trump administration’s consideration of using military force to acquire Greenland.

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) traveled to the island on Friday to meet with Danish officials.

“There is no question that Denmark welcome’s American presence in Greenland to do everything we can to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic,” Tillis posted on the social platform X on Thursday. “Let’s work together with Denmark and our NATO allies to project strength against these adversaries.”

Prior to the trip, the North Carolina Republican suggested military intervention to take over the country “would be met with pretty substantial opposition in Congress.”

“Right now, people are trying to be deferential, but this is just an example of, whoever keeps on telling the president that this idea is achievable should not be in Washington, D.C.,” he added.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) has also been heavily critical of a military takeover and of Miller’s role in advancing this idea, calling the suggestion “really dumb.”

Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.) similarly criticized Trump’s aide last week, calling his comments “completely unhinged.”

“But they’re saying the quiet part out loud, right?” Aguilar said. “They’re threatening a NATO ally in Greenland and Denmark, and I think it’s deeply frustrating to us.”

Danish officials are taking the threat seriously.

In an interview with local broadcaster TV2, translated by Bloomberg, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that if the U.S. engages a military takeover of the country, “everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War.”

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – FROM CNN

EUROPEAN LEADERS BACK DENMARK IN FACE OF RENEWED US INTEREST IN GREENLAND

Leaders from major European powers have just expressed support for Denmark and Greenland in a joint statement, saying the Arctic island belongs to its people, following renewed interest by US President Donald Trump in taking over the Danish territory.

“Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” said the statement by leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain and Denmark.

The leaders said that security in the Arctic must be achieved collectively with NATO allies, including the United States.

“NATO has made clear that the Arctic region is a priority and European Allies are stepping up,” the statement said. “We and many other Allies have increased our presence, activities and investments, to keep the Arctic safe and to deter adversaries.”

Trump has said repeatedly he wants to take over Greenland and told The Atlantic magazine on Sunday: “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense.”

A US military operation at the weekend, which led to the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has further rekindled concerns among Washington’s NATO allies that Greenland might face a similar scenario.

Some context: Greenland is the world’s largest island with a population of 57,000 people. It is not an independent member of NATO but is covered by Denmark’s membership of the Western military alliance.

The island’s strategic location between Europe and North America makes it a critical site for the US ballistic missile defense system. Its mineral wealth also aligns with Washington’s ambition to reduce reliance on Chinese exports.

Analysis: Why the US strike on Venezuela plunges Greenland and NATO into uncertainty

From CNN's Matthew Chance\

Amid increasing concerns that Greenland, a vast Arctic territory ruled by Denmark, is still being coveted by the Trump administration, the Danish prime minister has delivered a stark warning to the White House.

In nationally televised remarks, Mette Frederiksen reminded Danes that she had already “made it very clear where the Kingdom of Denmark stands, and that Greenland has repeatedly said that it does not want to be part of the United States.”

But she also warned of the consequences of US military action to seize Greenland – something US President Donald Trump has pointedly refused to rule out.

“First of all, I think you have to take the US president seriously when he says he wants Greenland,” Frederiksen said, reflecting heightened anxiety about Trump’s intentions in the aftermath of his extraordinary military action in Venezuela.

“But I also want to make it clear that if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II,” she added.

A Danish lawmaker has described US President Donald Trump’s latest comment about how the US needs Greenland as “very frankly stupid.”

It is a serious and widely shared concern among NATO allies that the Greenland issue has the potential not only to anger and humiliate a longtime US partner, but also to fracture the Western military alliance as pressure from Washington escalates.

Late last night White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller reiterated those claims that “Greenland should be part of the United States,” but he rejected that military force would be necessary to acquire it.

“Nobody’s gonna fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Miller said on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

When pressed whether military intervention is off the table, Miller instead questioned Denmark’s claim over the Arctic territory.

You can read the full analysis here.

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – FROM TIME

WHY IS TRUMP SO INTENT ON ACQUIRING GREENLAND?

By Connor Greene Editorial Fellow

President Donald Trump has had his sights set on Greenland for years.

He first offered to buy the island, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, in 2019 during his first term in what he described as “essentially a real estate deal.” Since his reelection he has redoubled the push to acquire the territory and repeatedly threatened to annex it, despite pushback from Greenland itself, Denmark, other European leaders, and even some prominent members of his own party within the U.S.

“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” the President told The Atlantic on Sunday. Extending from the Atlantic Ocean up to the Arctic Ocean, the island holds rich troves of natural resources and is uniquely situated to monitor Russian and Chinese military activity, offering a strategic position for further U.S. control of the region. Trump has framed Greenland as essential for U.S. national security, saying in his interview with The Atlantic that it is “surrounded” by Chinese and Russian ships, which necessitates increased U.S. defense. Reiterating his desire for the territory last January, he also asserted that it was needed for “economic security.”

The President and Administration officials have gone so far as to suggest, more than once, that military force could be deployed to acquire Greenland if it can’t be purchased. Trump has declined to rule out the possibility on multiple occasions, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that "utilizing the U.S. military is always an option."

Seven of Europe’s top leaders came to the defense of Greenland in a joint statement on Wednesday, saying that security in the Arctic must “be achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States, by upholding the principles of the U.N. Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said earlier in the week that a U.S. attack on the territory would end NATO. Both Denmark and the U.S. are founding members of the military alliance, established after the Second World War.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that he intends to speak with Danish officials next week on U.S. involvement in the territory. Later the same day, Jesper Møller Sørensen and Jacob Isbosethsen, Denmark’s ambassador and Greenland’s envoy, respectively, met with officials on the White House National Security Council to urge the U.S. to step back from its proposed takeover of the island. The Administration is also considering the idea of offering cash payments to Greenlanders, ranging from $10,000 to $15,000, in exchange for joining the U.S., Reuters reported.

But as the Administration’s efforts to acquire Greenland intensify, experts contend that the U.S. doesn’t need to fully control the territory to benefit from its strategic security position or natural resources.

“There’s a way for the Trump administration to get what it says it wants, and that's mineral access and military bases, by doing something that should be normal,” Nick Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and U.S. ambassador to China, tells TIME. “And that's respecting Denmark, working with them diplomatically on the basis the Danes have suggested: we are sovereign, but we welcome American investment and military presence.”

Here’s what to know.

NATIONAL SECURITY

The President has cast his interest in acquiring Greenland as being primarily motivated by national security concerns.

The island is situated along the GIUK Gap, a strategic chokepoint for surveillance in the Arctic region whose name references the first letters of Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom.

As a result of climate change and melting ice, which have allowed for further exploration, international shipping, and military presence in the area, it has become increasingly competitive. Russia, which stretches over half of the Arctic Ocean coastline, currently controls a majority of the region.

“Greenland is so strategic in a world where China and Russia have…major Arctic ambitions,” Burns says, noting that Russia “considers itself to be the Arctic power” and therefore it’s “very important that the United States up its game.” China, meanwhile, declared itself a “Near-Arctic State” in 2018 with the release of a strategy plan for arctic exploration and shipping.

Both Burns and Humpert emphasize to TIME that controlling all of Greenland isn’t necessary to accomplish Trump’s national security goals, however. Humpert points to the defense treaty from 1951 between the U.S. and Denmark, which already grants the U.S. the right to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases in Greenland.

The U.S. currently has one military base in Greenland, Pituffik Space Base, which is situated on the northwest coast. During the Second World War, the country built many bases on the island, but then scaled back its presence following the Cold War.

“I think it's clear that we do not need to invade Greenland or even to buy it to get what President Trump says he wants,” Burns says. “Both the Danish government and the Greenland regional authorities have consistently said they welcome the U.S. to do that on the military side.”

And more important and a greater asset to U.S. national security than dominance in the Arctic, he stresses, is the country’s membership in NATO. He notes that it is “in the American national interest that we stay in NATO” and framed the coalition as “our vehicle” for international protection.

“The stakes are so high here,” Burns says.

VAST, UNTAPPED RESOURCES

Greenland holds rich natural resources, including oil, rare earth minerals, and uranium, an important element for nuclear power. These offerings add to the island’s strategic importance, and its appeal for the U.S.

The President has dismissed the idea that these resources have a significant role in his push to acquire the territory, saying, "We need Greenland for national security, not minerals.”

But Mike Waltz, the current U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and Trump’s former national security advisor, said that the Administration’s draw to Greenland was “about critical minerals” and “natural resources” in a 2024 interview with Fox. And experts familiar with the island's landscape say those offerings would be of significant interest to the U.S.

Rare earth materials, a group of metallic elements that are abundant in Greenland, “are used in magnets, which are really important for a range of technologies, both for defense as well as for the renewable energy transition,” says Saleem Ali, a professor of energy and environment at the University of Delaware. He adds that products like wind turbines, sensors, and laptops require these elements to function.

“They're used in small amounts, but they're very important, sort of the secret sauce, sometimes, to make it work,” he tells TIME.

Uranium is also present in Greenland: Kvanefjeld, in the island’s south, is home to one of the largest deposits for uranium in the worldAli says that the geology of Greenland makes it “very appropriate” for these uranium deposits. Tapping into them could stoke the U.S.’s nuclear production.

Access to the island and its resources will likely only expand in the years ahead. “So much of Greenland is unexplored … With climate change, you are going to get a retreat of the ice sheet, and that will allow for exploration to occur,” Ali explains. He notes that roughly 80% of Greenland is covered by an ice sheet that is retreating.

He adds, however, that the U.S. would not need control over the island to make use of its natural resources.

“There has been no curtailment of U.S. investment going into there,” he says. Multiple billionaire American businessmen, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, are already exploring increasingly navigable regions of Greenland for metals like nickel and cobalt that are used for powering electric vehicles.

Bob Loeffler, a professor of public policy at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, who has visited Greenland three times to advise the State Department on its mineral policy, warns that the U.S.’s investment in Greenland might not be worth its time, despite the potential for untapped resources.

“People misunderstand how long it takes to develop a mine,” he tells TIME, noting that it can take up to 20 years to develop a viable mining site, given that the discovery of materials requires multiple exploratory expeditions. “We expect that Greenland has a lot of minerals, but without a lot more exploration, we don't know what's economically feasible.”

Loeffler believes that many of the resources on the island can be sourced elsewhere, and pushes back against the narrative that rare earth minerals, among other resources, can only be found in remote Arctic regions.

“Rare earths have that name, but they're not particularly rare,” he says. “And we have a number of them in the U.S., so it's not necessarily clear we need to go to Greenland.”

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN – FROM GUK

PANICKING OVER GREENLAND PLAYS INTO TRUMP’S HANDS – IT’S TIME FOR COOL HEADS AND STALLING DIPLOMACY

European countries sending troops to the island is only raising the temperature and generating fear – exactly what the US president wants

By Simon Jenkins Fri 16 Jan 2026 10.21 EST

Is Greenland Donald Trump’s 25th-amendment moment? Last time around, this was when the Washington “grownups” debated his capacity to be president, notably in the final fortnight of his presidency, after the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Under the constitution, a president can be replaced should the vice-president and a cabinet majority decide their leader is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. The trouble today is that there are no grownups.

The US president’s designs on Greenland are clearly mad. He claims Russia and China are scheming to seize the island and that Denmark should be forced urgently to transfer its sovereignty. Denmark had long allowed the US extended military access to Greenland, but Trump seems to want to own it. None of his staff has been able to say why.

Until now it would have seemed a comic satire for Norway, Sweden, France and Germany to be sending troops to Greenland, pending a possible US attack. Yet that is the absurd prospect happening this week. Britain even sent a military officer. This has come within weeks of Trump’s leadership putsch in Venezuela, and within days of his threatened military assault on Iran. In the latter he appeared to claim victory, saying Iran had stopped using its armed troops to suppress street protests. It happens that Trump has effectively been doing the same in Minnesota. He has had a hectic fortnight.

There is no justification for Trump’s attempted grab of Greenland. Under the Nato alliance there is full defence cooperation between the US and Denmark, as with Canada, which he has also threatened. Trump appears to be like a shoplifting addict who cannot resist a quick grab – an oilfield here, a critical minerals mine there. It is hard to believe he will not back off, but when?

Wise leaders have advisers. Reckless ones have sycophants. Most American presidents claim to be non-interventionists, but when dressed in the robes of military might they find it hard to resist flaunting them. As with George W Bush in Iraq, Trump’s “mission accomplished” press conference after Venezuela two weeks ago clearly exhilarated him. His army had just reportedly killed more than 100 people in Caracas, but he looked as if he had won the lottery.

When the US decides to set the world to rights, no one but the US can stop it. But the rights seldom emerge as such. They more often end as a vast expenditure of blood and money, justified by senseless talk of freedom and national security. This is despite the fact that, of all countries, the US must be the most unthreatened.

Sooner or later the US’s antique but resilient constitution will exert itself. Its central curb on presidential power remains the term limit. In three years, Trump will be gone. Before then, this year’s midterm elections seem certain to bring Congress some revival of confidence and thus balance of power. Assuming no 25th-amendment moment, Trump’s remaining years are likely to be dominated by an ever more eccentric vanity and growing domestic antipathy.

Meanwhile, what allies should not do is fall into Trump’s own trap, relying on the vacuities of national security to seal every argument and jeer every opponent. China and Russia may persist in their neurotic “grey-zone” aggressions, but the glee with which western defence lobbies use them to talk up the prospect of a “third world war” merely raises the temperature and generates fear.

China does not pose an existential threat to Britain. It never has and I cannot believe it ever will. Meanwhile, Russia’s borderlands have always been unstable. Before the current war, Russia had attacked Georgia and Ukraine in the past 20 years, without the west reacting militarily. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was outrageous and the west was right to help it defend itself. But that is quite different from declaring Russia a threat to Britain’s territorial security.

As Henry Kissinger and many Kremlinologists warned, Nato’s decision to advance its umbrella to Russia’s borders after the collapse of the Soviet Union was a severe test of Russian paranoia. Yet Russia has never responded by invading a Nato country, despite the incessant warnings of the defence lobby that it still might. The efforts of the former British army chief, Lord Dannatt, and others to portray Ukraine as just an overture to a third world war merely adds to Russia’s belligerence. I sometimes feel the military establishment craves war.

This is why Greenland matters. Clearly east-west relations – or rather emotions – are at an alarmingly tender stage. But portraying Russian tanks as about to race across Europe will hardly reduce the tension. A dispute over Greenland could split Nato and severely weaken it. If ever a crisis merited stalling and slow diplomacy, this is it. When tub-thumping generals and politicians seize the microphone from diplomats and peacemakers, all sanity vanishes.

In the past four years Ukraine has turned its border with Russia into a global battlefield between tyranny and freedom. But its dispute with Russia need have nothing to do with Nato. Of course Britons may want to assist other countries when fate or geography leads them into harm. But this has nothing to do with Britain’s national security. Defence is so expensive it should at least mean what it says on the tin.

Keir Starmer has promised to divert billions of pounds from his domestic budget into hiring soldiers and buying weapons. This is in order to send soldiers to Ukraine (and possibly even Greenland) so he can look good on his next foreign trip. He should not do so. They have nothing to do with the defence of Britain.

· Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: From Tea Party to Trump

ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN – FROM GUK

GREENLAND CRISIS: EUROPE NEEDS THE US, BUT IT ALSO NEEDS TO STAND UP TO TRUMP

US president’s increasingly bellicose demands for control of the island may force the EU to draw a line in the snow

Greenland: new shipping routes, hidden minerals – and a frontline between the US and Russia?

By Andrew Roth and Jennifer Rankin Sat 17 Jan 2026 00.15 EST

The crisis over Greenland may deliver the moment when Europe must stand up to Donald Trump, as officials have said a US attempt to annex the territory could shatter the Nato transatlantic alliance.

The obsequiousness has often played out in public. Various European leaders have vied for the role of “Trump whisperer” and Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, infamously referred to him as “daddy” at a summit last June.

But Trump’s’ repeated and increasingly bellicose demands that Denmark cede or sell him semi-autonomous Greenland has sparked one of the greatest crises for transatlantic partnership in its history – and may force Europe to draw a line in the snow.

After an hour-long meeting with the US vice-president, JD Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, stood grim-faced smoking cigarettes outside of the Eisenhower executive building in Washington DC.

“When it comes to Greenland, the Europeans have found a red line that they really want to stand by,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund for US defence and transatlantic security.

“Everything else has been subject to negotiation … but the Greenland situation is different because it comes to the question of sovereignty, and it comes to the question of whether Europe is capable of standing up for itself in terms of its own territory, its own rights.”

Europe, however, was at a “diplomatic disadvantage” because of its dependency on the US for security, said Latvia’s former prime minister Krišjanis Kariņš.

“Europe is not, unfortunately, in a strong position to strongly object, because, say, if Europe were to open up the dispute into the trade area, I’m certain that the US would respond in kind or more than in kind,” he said. “At the end of the day, Europe still needs the US.”

The strain on officials from Denmark and Greenland has been enormous. A day after meeting US officials, a visibly emotional Motzfeldt said she had been overwhelmed by the last few days of negotiations.

“Denmark has really only been a good ally to the US,” said Marisol Maddox, a senior fellow at Dartmouth University’s Arctic studies institute. “So that’s also a part of what makes this so extraordinary, is this was like going up to your best friend and just randomly slapping them in the face ... There’s nothing to provoke this.”

Trump’s interest in acquiring the island has only grown since his longtime friend Ronald Lauder, the heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company, first suggested it to him in 2019. The White House has said its main concern is national security, but Trump has admitted that ego plays a key role as well. He told the New York Times last week that owning Greenland was “what I feel is psychologically needed for success”. On Friday, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that do not “go along” with his ambition to annex Greenland.

Europe has responded by seeking to cut the legs out from under the Trump administration’s argument that Greenland is underprotected from a potential Russian or Chinese attack. A small French military contingent arrived on the island on Thursday as part of a limited deployment including troops from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK.

“The defence and protection of Greenland is a common concern for the entire Nato alliance,” said Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt are scheduled to meet Rutte for talks on Monday.

What can the EU and Nato do to stop Trump from trying to claim Greenland?

By deploying troops and assets, Kariņš said European leaders could take away a pretext of the Trump administration for annexing the territory, referring to arguments that it was not protected from Russian and Chinese aggression.

“President Trump has a pretty established track record now of sort of doing things his own way,” he said. But if Europe strengthens Greenland’s military security, “it takes away a public argument by the Trump administration” for annexation.

Aside from military deployments, observers have plenty of ideas about how the EU can protect Danish sovereignty of Greenland and assert European interest. At the milder end, suggestions include convening an international summit on Arctic security in Nuuk, co-organised by Denmark and Greenland, together with the EU and non-EU countries including the UK, Canada, Norway and the US.

More radical ideas are also circulating, such as freezing the European parliament’s vote on ratification of the EU-US trade deal agreed with Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year. A group of socialist and green MEPs argue that voting on the deal, currently scheduled for February, would be “easily seen as rewarding … his actions”.

Such a move, however, is unlikely to gain majority support in the right-leaning parliament, where many MEPs are wary of antagonising the White House.

The day after Rasmussen said Trump remained intent on conquering Greenland, EU officials continued to be diplomatic. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the US on Thursday as an ally and partner while discussing the Greenland situation.

She also set out how the EU was seeking to deepen support for the island, citing the opening of an office in Nuuk and a proposal to double EU financial aid. “Greenland can count on us, politically, economically and financially,” she told reporters.

Constantinos Kombos, the foreign minister of Cyprus, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the bloc needed to intensify dialogue with the US over Greenland. “Maybe [the current administration] is different than what we are used to and it is, but that doesn’t mean we have the luxury of responding with our self-isolation,” he said.

ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN – FROM FUTURE WARFARE

MACRON'S NUCLEAR WARNING? FRANCE SIGNALS DETERRENCE OVER GREENLAND CRISIS

by Marco Giulio Barone 15/01/2026

An emergency defence council meeting has been held at the Élysée Palace this Thursday, 15 January 2026. Afterwards, Emmanuel Macron delivered his New Year's address to the armed forces, a highly anticipated event as France continues to seek a budget for 2026 amid geopolitical tensions, including transatlantic tensions, and growing military needs.

French President Emmanuel Macron's stark declaration today —"nous sommes prêts à dissuader pour défendre notre sol" (we are ready to deter to defend our territory) - represents a potentially unprecedented signal that France may extend its nuclear deterrent umbrella to encompass European allies facing territorial threats from Washington. Coupled with his assertion that "pour être libres, il faut être craints" (to be free, we must be feared), Macron has articulated a doctrine that treats threats to European sovereignty, including Denmark's control over Greenland, as matters potentially invoking France's nuclear posture.

The language Macron employed merits careful analysis. French nuclear doctrine deliberately maintains strategic ambiguity around what constitutes "vital interests" - the threshold for potential nuclear response. Historically, French strategists have defined these interests geographically (French territory and its approaches) and politically (tied to European construction). By characterizing an US seizure of Greenland as triggering "unprecedented cascading consequences" and explicitly treating Europe as homeland territory worthy of deterrence protection, Macron has subtly but significantly expanded the conceptual boundaries of French vital interests.

This represents an escalation in France's year-long campaign to position itself as Europe's nuclear guarantor amid US strategic unreliability. Since March 2025, when Macron announced France would "open the strategic debate on using our deterrent to protect our allies on the European continent," Paris has systematically laid groundwork for extending nuclear assurances beyond strict territorial defence. The July 2025 UK-France declaration established that both nations' deterrents "can be coordinated" and that "no extreme threat to Europe" would fail to prompt a response from both nuclear powers”.

The probability that France would actually deploy nuclear weapons over Greenland remains extremely low, constrained by doctrine, capability, and alliance politics. French deterrence posture emphasizes "strict sufficiency" - maintaining the minimum arsenal necessary for self-defence, with use contemplated only in "extreme circumstances". France's relatively modest nuclear force (4 SSBNs and the air-launched component based on RAFALEs) lacks the capacity to credibly extend deterrence across multiple European allies while maintaining credible homeland protection against Russia.

Yet dismissing Macron's rhetoric as mere posturing would be strategically myopic. The French president is engaged in sophisticated signalling aimed at multiple audiences. To Washington, the message conveys that unilateral US violations of European sovereignty carry strategic costs, potentially fracturing the transatlantic alliance and driving European strategic autonomy. To European capitals, Macron demonstrates French willingness to assume security leadership amid US unreliability. To Moscow, coordinated Franco-British nuclear messaging reinforces that European deterrence exists independent of US guarantees.

MACRON'S GREENLAND POSITION

On the immediate Greenland question, Macron has adopted a maximalist defence of Danish sovereignty. France signed a seven-nation joint statement declaring that "Greenland belongs to its people" and that security in the Arctic must respect "sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders". Paris announced plans to open a consulate in Greenland on 6 February as a "political signal," with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot urging Washington to "stop blackmailing" Denmark.

Macron has explicitly linked France's position to its own territorial vulnerabilities, noting that France possesses overseas territories and "absolutely would not accept any questioning of French sovereignty over our own territories". This connection between Greenland and French territorial integrity in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Indian Ocean amplifies Paris's strategic interest beyond abstract European solidarity.

The French president's framing treats European territorial disputes as existential questions demanding deterrence-level responses. His July 2025 defence address emphasized that "pour être libres dans ce monde, il faut être craint. Pour être craint, il faut être puissants" (to be free in this world, we must be feared; to be feared, we must be powerful). He repeated the same exact sentence today, word by word. This philosophy explicitly rejects post-Cold War assumptions about inviolable borders among Western allies, instead embracing a realist posture where credible military power - including nuclear capabilities - underpins sovereignty.

Whether Macron's nuclear signalling represents genuine doctrine evolution or sophisticated bluffing, it marks a watershed in European security architecture. France is systematically constructing political and operational infrastructure for an extended deterrence role, including strategic dialogues with Germany, Poland, and other willing partners.

For Washington, Macron's rhetoric presents a strategic dilemma. Aggressive unilateralism toward Greenland risks accelerating precisely the European strategic autonomy that undermines US influence. Yet backing down in response to French nuclear posturing would establish dangerous precedents for adversaries globally. The crisis has exposed fundamental contradictions in an alliance where the security guarantor increasingly threatens the territorial integrity of protected allies.

As the Trump administration designs on Greenland persist, Macron has positioned France as the ultimate guarantor of European sovereignty - a role that implicitly invokes the full spectrum of French military power, including its force de dissuasion. Whether this represents credible extended deterrence or calculated strategic ambiguity, Paris has fundamentally altered the stakes of the Arctic territorial dispute.

ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN – FROM 1440

US GREENLAND MEETING

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland yesterday in Washington, DC. The meeting came as President Donald Trump ramped up pressure over Greenland, saying the US would not accept anything less than full control of the world’s largest island.

Greenland has been under Danish control for nearly 300 years, but the Arctic island of approximately 57,000 people gained self-rule status in 2009. It is home to the northernmost US military base, including around 150 US Air Force and Space Force personnel. Trump has joined other presidents in expressing an interest in acquiring Greenland. He has threatened to invade Greenland if Denmark does not sell the territory, citing the island’s large reserves of rare earth minerals, oil, and gas, and its strategic placement vis-à-vis Russia and China.

This week, Denmark expanded its military presence on Greenland and yesterday announced Operation Arctic Endurance—a multinational group that includes officers from Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands.

ATTACHMENT SEVENTEEN – FROM POLITICO

DENMARK AND ALLIES BOOST GREENLAND MILITARY FOOTPRINT AS TRUMP RAMPS UP PRESSURE

The deployment comes as U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies talk of taking over the Arctic island.

By Chris Lunday, Victor Jack and Laura Kayali January 14, 2026 6:47 pm CET

Denmark and allied countries said Wednesday they will increase their military presence in Greenland as part of expanded exercises, amid intensifying pressure from Washington over the Arctic island’s sovereignty.

“Security in the Arctic is of crucial importance to the Kingdom and our Arctic allies, and it is therefore important that we, in close cooperation with allies, further strengthen our ability to operate in the region,” said Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen. “The Danish Defense Forces, together with several Arctic and European allies, will explore in the coming weeks how an increased presence and exercise activity in the Arctic can be implemented."

In a statement, Denmark’s defense ministry said additional Danish aircraft, naval assets and troops will be deployed in and around Greenland starting immediately as part of expanded training and exercise activity. The effort will include “receiving allied forces, operating fighter jets and carrying out maritime security tasks,” the ministry said.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on X that Swedish officers are arriving in Greenland as part of a multinational allied group to help prepare upcoming phases of Denmark’s Operation Arctic Endurance exercise, following a request from Copenhagen.

A European diplomat said that troops from the Netherlands, Canada and Germany were also taking part. The diplomat and another official with first-hand knowledge said France was also involved.

"As of this moment, the Canadian Armed Forces are not initiating any new operations in Greenland," said Maya Ouferhat, press secretary in the office of Canada's minister of national defense.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced in the early hours of Thursday morning that: "At the request of Denmark, I have decided that France will participate in the joint exercises organized by Denmark in Greenland, Operation Arctic Endurance. The first French military elements are already on their way. Others will follow."

Germany's defense ministry said it will deploy a reconnaissance team of 13 soldiers to Greenland as of Thursday for exercises running to Saturday. "The aim is to explore the framework conditions for possible military contributions to support Denmark in ensuring security in the region," Berlin said.

Defense ministries in the other countries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

So far, the deployment remains intergovernmental and has not been formally approved by NATO, according to two people familiar with the matter.

“The goal is to show that Denmark and key allies can increase their presence in the Arctic region,” said a third person briefed on the plans, demonstrating their "ability to operate under the unique Arctic conditions and thereby strengthen the alliance’s footprint in the Arctic, benefiting both European and transatlantic security."

The announcement landed the same day U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers in Washington, following days of rising transatlantic tensions over President Donald Trump's bid to take over the strategic island.

Trump escalated the dispute earlier Wednesday in a Truth Social post, declaring that “the United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security,” calling it “vital” for his planned “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

He also insisted that seizing Greenland would not destroy NATO, despite warnings from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that such a move would end the Atlantic alliance.

Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly rejected any suggestion of a transfer of sovereignty, stressing that Greenland is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark and that its future is for Greenlanders alone to decide.

Greenland’s government said it is working closely with Copenhagen to ensure local involvement and transparency, with Denmark’s Arctic Command tasked with keeping the population informed.

“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, said at a press conference Tuesday.

In response, Trump said, “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

This article has been updated.

ATTACHMENT EIGHTEEN – FROM IUK (NUKE NUUK)

TRUMP FLOATS TARIFFS AGAINST COUNTRIES THAT ‘DON’T GO ALONG’ WITH HIS PLANS FOR GREENLAND

Trump has argued the U.S. must acquire Greenland for national security

By Katie Hawkinson in Washington, D.C. Friday 16 January 2026 17:49 GMT

President Donald Trump said he’s weighing tariffs against countries that don’t go along with his push to acquire Greenland.

Trump announced the potential tariffs Friday at a rural health roundtable event. The president has repeatedly argued the U.S. must acquire Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark, for national security purposes.

“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security,” Trump said.

Trump made the brief remark as he discussed drug prices and tariffs against other nations at the roundtable event. He did not expand further on what Greenland-related tariffs could look like. The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.

When asked on Wednesday about the U.S. acquiring Greenland, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he’s “not going to give up options.”

Greenlanders brave near-freezing temperatures to march against Trump’s takeover threats

“Greenland is very important for the national security, including of Denmark. And the problem is there’s not a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland, but there’s everything we can do. You found that out last week with Venezuela,” Trump added Wednesday.

Just 17 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s efforts to acquire the territory, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday. A significant majority of both Republican and Democratic voters also oppose using military force to annex it, the poll revealed.

The White House has also floated buying the Arctic island, which could cost the U.S. up to $700 billion — which is more than half of the Defense Department’s annual budget, according to NBC News. That aside, Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said that the territory is not for sale, and those living in the territory have no wish for it to be absorbed into America.

Meanwhile, NATO allies are sending military reinforcements to Greenland amid Trump’s threats. Several nations, including France and Germany, have already committed to sending personnel.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has said the plan is to have a military presence “in rotation” with allies over the coming weeks.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that an attempt by a NATO member to take over another member would be “a political disaster.”

Closer to home, some of Trump’s fellow Republicans have criticized his push for Greenland, including Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and Nebraska Representative Don Bacon.

Danish and Greenlandic officials met with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the White House Wednesday to discuss Trump’s claims. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said a “fundamental disagreement” remained following the talks.

“We didn’t manage to change the American position. It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland,” Rasmussen told reporters Wednesday.

“We made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the kingdom,” he added.

ATTACHMENT NINETEEN – FROM 1440

By EMMA BURROWS, CLAUDIA CIOBANU and BEN FINLEY Updated 7:58 PM EST, January 14, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Danish official said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after holding highly anticipated White House talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The two sides, however, agreed to create a working group to discuss ways to work through differences as Trump continues to call for a U.S. takeover of the semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after joining Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the talks. He added that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”

Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the U.S. acquire the world’s largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable.

AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports President Trump did not get what he wanted from talks on Greenland.

Denmark, meanwhile, announced plans to boost the country’s military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.

Denmark, Greenland leaders stand united against Trump's Greenland takeover call ahead of key meeting

Denmark, Greenland envoys met with White House officials over Trump's call for a 'takeover'

Rubio plans to meet with Danish officials next week to talk about US interest in Greenland

The president, who did not take part in Wednesday’s meeting, told reporters he remained committed to acquiring the territory.

“We need Greenland for national security,” Trump said. “We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.”

Trump named Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as a special envoy to Greenland last month. Landry did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, but was scheduled to travel to Washington on Thursday and Friday for meetings that include the topic of Greenland, his spokesperson said.

Landry, following Trump’s latest comments, posted on X that Trump was “absolutely right” about acquiring Greenland and the territory “is a critical component of our nation’s national security portfolio.”

Before the meeting, Trump took to social media to make the case that “NATO should be leading the way” for the U.S. to acquire the territory. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has sought to keep an arms-length away from the dispute between the most important power and the other members of the 32-country alliance unnerved by the aggressive tack Trump has taken toward Denmark.

Both Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt offered measured hope that the talks were beginning a conversation that would lead to Trump dropping his demand and create a path for tighter cooperation with the U.S.

“We have shown where our limits are and from there, I think that it will be very good to look forward,” Motzfeldt said.

DENMARK BOLSTERING PRESENCE IN ARCTIC

In Copenhagen, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced a stepped-up military presence in the Arctic “in close cooperation with our allies,” a necessity in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”

Several of the country’s allies, including Germany, France, Norway and Sweden, announced they were arriving in Greenland along with Danish personnel to take part in joint exercises or map out further military cooperation in the Arctic.

NATO is also looking at how members can collectively bolster the alliance’s presence in the Arctic, said a NATO official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

GREENLANDERS WANT THE US TO BACK OFF

Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.

Trump says Greenland is also “vital” to the United States’ Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said Russia and China pose a threat in the region.

But experts and Greenlanders question that claim, and it has become a hot topic on the snow-covered main street in Greenland’s capital, where international journalists and camera crews have descended as Trump continues his takeover talk.

In interviews, Greenlanders said the outcome of the Washington talks didn’t exactly evince confidence that Trump can be persuaded.

“Trump is unpredictable,” said Geng Lastein, who immigrated to Greenland 18 years ago from the Philippines.

Maya Martinsen, 21, said she doesn’t buy Trump’s arguments that Greenland needs to be controlled by the U.S. for the sake maintaining a security edge in Arctic over China and Russia. Instead, Martinsen said, Trump is after the plentiful “oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”

Greenland “has beautiful nature and lovely people,” Martinsen added. “It’s just home to me. I think the Americans just see some kind of business trade.”

Denmark has said the U.S., which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. The U.S. is party to a 1951 treaty that gives it broad rights to set up military bases there with the consent of Denmark and Greenland.

BIPARTISAN CONCERN FROM U.S. SENATORS

Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt also met with a bipartisan group senators from the Arctic Caucus. The senators said they were concerned Trump’s push to acquire Greenland could upend NATO and play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has introduced legislation to try to block any U.S. action in Greenland, said it was “stunning” to her that they were even discussing the matter. “We are operating in times where we are having conversations about things that we never even thought possible,” Murkowski said.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said it is “nonsense” to say that the U.S. needs to control Greenland to protect national security. The officials were “very open to additional national security assets in Greenland in order to meet whatever risks there are.”

A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers plans to show their solidarity by traveling to Copenhagen this week.

___

Burrows reported from Nuuk, Greenland and Ciobanu from Warsaw, Poland. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio and Geir Moulson in Berlin, Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro, Aamer Madhani and Will Weissert in Washington, Sara Cline and Jack Brook in Baton Rouge, La., and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY – FROM NY POST

US INVASION OF GREENLAND WOULD TRIGGER ‘END OF NATO,’ SPARK WAR WITH EUROPE, DEMS WARN

By Ryan King Published Jan. 11, 2026, 1:25 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Democratic senators warned Sunday that a US invasion of Greenland would mean the “end of NATO” — and that America would be at war with Europe.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Sunday that NATO would be forced to step in if the US annexed the Danish territory, which could topple the powerful military alliance and potentially put America in a clash with Europe.

“I mean, NATO would have an obligation to defend Greenland. And so query whether we would be at war with Europe, with England, with France,” Murphy warned on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Murphy’s concerns Sunday, saying that an annexation of Greenland would be a death knell for the NATO alliance — despite acknowledging the strategic benefits.

“Greenland is extraordinarily strategic. And we have a treaty with Denmark that gives us a right to virtually do anything we want in Greenland,” Warner told “Fox News Sunday.”

“If he were to take an action against Greenland, that would completely destroy NATO.”

President Trump, who has set his sights on Greenland for years, re-upped his threat to acquire the icy island last week — regardless of whether the Danes like it or not.

“We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor,” Trump told reporters.

“I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way. And I am a fan of Denmark,” the president continued.

“But the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean that they own the land.” @update

Top Trump administration officials have declined to rule out the use of military force, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying on Tuesday it “is always an option.”

The possibility has rattled Europe in the wake of Trump greenlighting Operation Absolute Resolve, in which Delta Forces ripped into Venezuela and captured dictator Nicolas Maduro in the wee morning hours of Jan. 3.

Some lawmakers, meanwhile, are pushing for a war powers resolution to stop Trump from deploying the military to capture Greenland.

PEANUT GALLERY

· Eugene O Neill

11 January, 2026

The United States will never invade Greenland. President Trump will offer a package of funding, financing, investment and incentives in order to basically purchase the country. As part of Mr. Trump’s unprecedented $1.6 trillion defense budget proposal, the U.S. will build military bases and airstri...See more

o Emily

11 January, 2026

Ok but, as pointed out above, we already have an air base there and have had it since WW2 ended.

3 replies

Show 4 more replies

· mm2365

11 January, 2026

US is not going to invade Greenland. This is Trump "saber rattling" to get a deal to purchase the island or to get better deals on mineral leases and leases for military bases.

o Darby Heavey

11 January, 2026

We want Demark to defend it with half the vigor they defend trans rights.

1 reply

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· Darhar M.

11 January, 2026

Democrats as usual have no clue as to what is going on.

Europe would not fight the US since they would have no one to save them from Russia or China.

As for NATO the US needs to withdraw from NATO and let Europe handle their own military affairs.

o Love The truth

11 January, 2026

Do you want to stump the Democrats? Then ask them where Greenland is located; they'll immediately tell you it's either in Somalia or somewhere near Iran and Ukraine.

2 replies

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· ChiefCW3Army

11 January, 2026

Guy, the US is the only Superpower in the world. The European nations are afraid of Russia, they wouldn’t dare attack the US over Greenland. They would just protest at the UN, a none productive organization that waste our tax dollars.

1 reply

· King William

11 January, 2026

NATO is dead and not beneficial to the US. Let the other countries carry themselves. We need to protect ourselves.

o Crack Hunter

11 January, 2026

Especially when our biggest threat are democrats

· Independent Merg

11 January, 2026

So I’m reading the comments from Trump supporters saying things like, Trump will not invade Greenland, This is his negotiating tactics, etc. Can we, therefore, all agree that if Trump invades Greenland, you will no longer support him? It’s an easy question to answer. Or at least it should be. We ar...

o Joe Spice

11 January, 2026

I will support him. I also support taking Greenland. We have to have control in Artic.

1 reply

Show 1 more reply

· snapper1962

11 January, 2026

Trivia question of the day...... The US is concerned that they are being inexorably drawn into a conflict with a future adversary. That adversary has been conducting strategic activities in a Danish colonial possession in the Western Hemisphere. In an effort to exercise it's own strategic interests,...See more

o Emily

11 January, 2026

Google:

The U.S. purchased the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million in gold, renaming them the U.S. Virgin Islands, a strategic move during World War I to secure the Caribbean and protect the Panama Canal

1 reply

· PyroRob69 undefined

11 January, 2026

Chris Murphy is always looking for the destruction of the US. He hates the constitution, runs his mouth about how bad the US is, and he gets moist speaking about socialism. He should be removed from Congress for being anti-American.

1 reply

· Roadrunner

11 January, 2026

NATO should be dissolved and the 31 other current NATO members should create a new military alliance between them, without the U.S.

Trump doesn't care about treaties anyway, as the world has seen repeatedly. He considers them useful to line birdcages perhaps, but that's it.

Let the U.S. forge ahead o...

1 reply

· Inspector Harry Callahan

11 January, 2026

As usual democrats worship their masters in China and won’t ever see anything Donald J Trump does as strategic all these demcorats opposing him follow the money it’s all Chinese communist party lobbyists paying them

1 reply

· Blue_32

11 January, 2026

Fear mongering. NATO is nothing without the US.

1 reply

· LD

11 January, 2026

NATO? The illegal money, laundering organization that’s funded by the American taxpayers?

1 reply

· LuieGato

11 January, 2026

If there is no NATO, does this mean the NATO members would actually have to pay their own way militarily?

o Emily

11 January, 2026

Yep! And they have promised to raise military spending to 5% of GDP!

Eventually. lol

Show 1 more reply

· Roadrunner

12 January, 2026

Greenland Prime Minister today:

Greenland 'cannot accept' US desire to control territory; will work with Denmark to step up dialogue on territory's defence through Nato

The Greenlandic government has just issued a statement responding to the latest comments from the US president, Donald Trump, about ...

1 reply

· Vet eran

11 January, 2026

If Chris Murphy said that - then it’s surely would end up the other way.

1 reply

· Donald + Epstein = Love *

11 January, 2026

The people of Greenland do NOT want to have anything to do with Trump and the USA.

They simply wish to be left alone.

Period.

5 replies

· Roadrunner

12 January, 2026

End of NATO? shrug

Let the U.S. go it alone in all future wars, who cares. It's never won a war by itself in the past and won't in the future either. Maybe the U.S. can beg Putin or China for assistance in its future wars.

As for defending Greenland? There's always Article 42(7) of the treaty of the ...

· RickyTickySavvy

11 January, 2026

...lol, NATO and the UN are has-been alliances that are no longer needed. NATO is only relevant with US backing and the UN is run by globalists who hate the US, and is intent on keeping the world in disarray to remain relevant. Get rid of both!

· MarkinVT

11 January, 2026

Democrats are opposed to the acquisition of Greenland (by any means) because they are opposed to Trump, and especially anything that Makes America Great Again.

1 reply

· The Real Evan Evans

11 January, 2026

End of NATO? Why is that a bad thing? Europe is quite capable of defending themselves right?

2 replies

· Flanyca

11 January, 2026

Poor Greenland! They have become a very strategic location and their land itself is rich with valuable minerals. Unfortunately, they have a hard choice to make through no fault of their own.

1 reply

· Roadrunner

11 January, 2026

The U.S. invading Greenland would literally be an act of war.

Of course Trump will ignore the U.S. Constitution and make up some phony reason to bypass U.S. Congress.

Attacking Greenland wouldn't have to be the end of NATO. The U.S. would end up being kicked out of NATO, and rightfully so, but the o...

6 replies

· RR

11 January, 2026

Murphy is another Democrat dunce from CT. First off we already have military bases there. They have been there 50 or more years. If anything we could update and reinforce our presence there. Also, Europe (NATO) can't 'afford' to withdraw from NATO. They would have to spend an enormous amount of mon...

1 reply

· Matt Noto

11 January, 2026

You make this sound as if it's a bad thing. Europe is irrelevant; has been since 1945, it just didn't know it and didn't have to acknowledge it since American lives and treasure propped up their dreams of being something special. They're jealous of Americans, even having gone so far as to try to em...

· Bennie Brightside Jr

11 January, 2026

BREAKING: U.S. billionaires including Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Jeff Bezos have already established a presence in Greenland, pouring money into AI powered rare earth drilling and advancing plans for a so called “freedom city.”

About $$$ Not U.S. national security

o Desert Queen

11 January, 2026

EVERY move this President makes is about American security!

Show 1 more reply

· Greg

11 January, 2026

Why hasn't Denmark given independence to Greenland and the Faroe Islands? The US should help them. Anything to say Bjork?

1 reply

· Joe G

11 January, 2026

Chris Murphy should keep his mouth shut. This empty suit talks, talks, and talks, but gibberish comes out of his mouth. I mean what has this guy done in the Senate since 2013? Absolutely nothing constructive, but he's a champion at spreading fear, rumors, conjecture, propaganda, and innuendo. W...

· Leftistsarehypocrites

11 January, 2026

China and Russia want to take over Greenland. Its closer to our side of the world anyway so.....maybe it is time we take it over. Most of Europe gave up all their weapons so it wouldn't be so hard to defeat them anyway. Europe right now is running itself into the ground by that cult that they allow...

ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE – FROM GUK

REPUBLICAN DISSENT AS KEY FIGURES WARN TRUMP AGAINST GREENLAND PURSUIT

Congressional Republicans criticize ‘absurd’ idea as polls show most Americans oppose taking control of territory

By Chris Stein in Washington Sat 17 Jan 2026 05.00 EST

Donald Trump’s renewed interest in taking control of Greenland has become a subject of pointed dissent among congressional Republicans, with several allies speaking out in recent days against the idea after the president reintensified his interest following the US raid that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Congressional Republicans are typically loath to disagree openly with the president, who has repeatedly called for his party’s dissenters to be voted out of office. But amid polling that shows an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose taking control of the island and warnings from Denmark that an invasion would spell the end of Nato, some congressional Republicans have issued forceful warnings against pursuing the issue.

European leaders warn of ‘downward spiral’ after Trump threatens tariffs over Greenland – Europe live

“The thought of the United States taking the position that we would take Greenland, an independent territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, is absurd,” North Carolina senator Thom Tillis said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Somebody needs to tell the president that the people of Greenland, up until these current times, were actually very, very pro-American and very, very pro American presence.”

Nebraska congressman Don Bacon told the Omaha World-Herald: “If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency. And he needs to know: the off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”

Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Republican leader, compared the possibility of the US seizing Greenland to Joe Biden’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which became an unpopular moment in the Democrat’s presidency.

“Following through on this provocation would be more disastrous for the president’s legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor,” McConnell said, warning that it would amount to “incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal allies in exchange for no meaningful change in US access to the Arctic”.

Trump has displayed an expansionist streak in his second term as president and publicly declared that he would like the United States to annex Canada, the Panama canal and Greenland, even though it is part of Denmark, a Nato ally.

The subject appeared to have fallen by the wayside in recent months as Trump grappled with slumping approval ratings driven by public concern over the cost of living and his militarized immigration enforcement campaign but he began fixating on Greenland again after the successful raid in Venezuela that saw Maduro taken to stand trial in a New York court.

European countries have reacted with alarm to Trump’s comments, and troops from France, Germany, the UK, Norway and Sweden arrived in Greenland this week in a show of political support that one country said doubled as a scoping mission for what a sustained deployment in the territory would look like.

The foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark sat down with Trump, vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio on Wednesday, but the meeting did not change the US president’s demands. Trump later said that the US still “needs” Greenland for national security reasons, and on Friday, the president warned he may impose tariffs on countries that oppose his campaign.

Trump has kept the bulk of Republicans in line, even on foreign policy issues. After the Senate last week advanced a war powers resolution that would have required Congress be notified before attack Venezuela again, the president said the five Republicans who joined with Democrats in supporting the measure “should never be elected to office again”. On Wednesday, two of the GOP senator changed their votes this week to kill the resolution.

Tillis – who broke with Trump over his signature domestic policy bill – along with Bacon and McConnell, are not seeking re-election this year. Other Republicans who spoke out against Trump’s campaign for Greenland are among the few to frequently disagree with the president.

“This senator from Alaska does not think it is a good idea, and I want to build on the relationship that we have had,” centrist Lisa Murkowski on Friday said during a visit by a bipartisan congressional delegation to Copenhagen. “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset.”

There are signs that Republicans closer to the president are uncomfortable with his campaign as well, and in particular the threat it poses to Nato.

“As head of the US delegation to the [Nato parliamentary assembly] , I can not overstate the importance of our transatlantic relationships,” Ohio congressman Mike Turner wrote on X. “We must respect the sovereignty of the Danish and Greenlander people.”

In an interview with CNN last week, Lousiana senator John Kennedy said: “To invade Greenland and attack its sovereignty, a fellow Nato country, would be weapons-grade stupid. President Trump is not weapons-grade stupid.”

ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE – FROM NJ.COM

‘SOMETIMES DADDY NEED TO BE TOLD NO’: FOX NEWS HOSTS SPAR OVER TRUMP’S LATEST FIXATION

By Nick Moyle | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Updated: Jan. 15, 2026, 12:09 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland sparked a lively debate between Fox News co-hosts Jesse Watters and Jessica Tarlov.

During Wednesday’s broadcast of “The Five,” Watters questioned why NATO wouldn’t give “daddy what he wants,” a reference to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte calling Trump “daddy.”

The Kingdom of Denmark, including Greenland, is a NATO member and is fully covered by the Alliance’s collective security guarantees. Trump has stated that NATO would be “far more formidable” with Greenland under U.S. control and “anything less than that is unacceptable.”

Tarlov, the show’s lone liberal‚ disagreed with Watters and criticized Trump’s “lack of respect for a foreign nation.”

“Sometimes daddy needs to be told no,” Tarlov said. “That’s just the facts on the table.”

“And it seems like the Danish foreign minister, the Danish prime minister, the head of Greenland, they’ve got the stuff,” she added.

Trump’s efforts to bring Greenland under U.S. control have been met with fierce resistance from Greenlanders and European leaders.

Following a meeting of U.S., Danish and Greenlandic officials on Wednesday, several European countries announced that they would send small numbers of military personnel to Greenland in an effort to assure Trump of its security.

“At the request of Denmark, I have decided that France will participate in the joint exercises organized by Denmark in Greenland, Operation Arctic Endurance. The first French military elements are already on their way. Others will follow,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X.

Troops from Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden will also travel to Greenland for the joint military exercises.

And among Greenland’s inhabitants, there is little support for Trump’s efforts to take control of the island. A survey by the pollster Verian conducted last year found only 6% of Greenlanders are in favor of leaving Denmark and becoming part of the U.S.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO – FROM IUK

RUSSIA SAYS GREENLAND BELONGS TO DENMARK - AFTER FOUR YEARS OF TRYING TO TAKE UKRAINIAN TERRITORY

Donald Trump threatened allies with more tariffs if they did not go along with his plan for the Danish territory

By James C. Reynolds Friday 16 January 2026 17:59 GMT

The Kremlin said Russia considers Greenland to be Danish territory, as Donald Trump refuses to back down over his repeated threats against a Nato ally.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation was “extraordinary” from the perspective of international law, despite Moscow itself having been repeatedly accused of breaching international law with its deadly invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

“On the other hand, given that President Trump is in Washington ... he himself has said that international law is not a priority for him,” Peskov added.

Trump threatened new tariffs against those who oppose his Greenland plans on Friday, after European allies rallied around Denmark by sending a small number of troops to the territory.

Denmark’s foreign minister emerged from a summit at the White House this week saying there remained a “fundamental disagreement” on the issue.

Republicans are turning up the rhetoric against Trump’s plan to take Greenland

The Trump administration argues that the territory is key to security in the Arctic, and charges Denmark with not having done enough to protect it.

The US president has not ruled out the use of force to take it, just as Copenhagen maintains it is not for sale.

Trump's special envoy to Greenland said he planned to visit the territory in March, and that he believed a deal could be done.

“I do believe that there's a deal that should and will be made once this plays out,” Jeff Landry told Fox News in an interview on Friday.

“The president is serious. I think he's laid the markers down. He's told Denmark what he's looking for”.

European nations this week sent small numbers of military personnel to the island at Denmark's request. The White House said it was unlikely to make a difference.

“I don't think troops in Europe impact the president's decision-making process, nor does it impact his goal of the acquisition of Greenland at all,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told a briefing.

New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the takeover rhetoric undermined Nato and played into the hands of its main adversaries, Russia and China.

“I know there are real, deep concerns here in Denmark and in Greenland. These concerns are understandable when trust is shaken. But I believe saner heads will prevail,” she said.

“And I believe that because institutions are already acting. On both sides of the aisle in Congress, there is overwhelming support for Nato and for the US-Danish relationship.”

Thousands take to the streets to protest Trump’s demand for Greenland

Cabinet ministers from Denmark and Greenland met on Friday to discuss the island's preparedness, they said in a joint statement.

Trump first floated the idea of acquiring Greenland in 2019 during his first term, but faces opposition in Washington, including from within his own party.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE – FROM TIME

‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’: GREENLAND’S PRIME MINISTER ISSUES STARK WARNING AS TRUMP RENEWS ANNEXATION THREAT

By Callum Sutherland Jan 5, 2026 7:48 AM ET

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has warned the United States to stop its threats of annexation against the territory.

“No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation,” he urged on Sunday, emphasizing that while Greenland is open to a dialogue with the U.S., it will no longer stand for “pressure” or “disrespectful posts on social media.” Nielsen’s impassioned statement comes as President Donald Trump renews his annexation threat against Greenland in the wake of the Venezuela operation which saw Nicolás Maduro captured and brought to the U.S.

In comments that Nielsen labeled “utterly unacceptable,” Trump repeated his eagerness to oversee a U.S. annexation of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. “We need Greenland from a national security situation. It’s so strategic,” the President told reporters aboard Air Force One over the weekend. “Right now Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it.” Trump claimed that the European Union “needs” the U.S. to “have” Greenland. (European leaders have previously shown support for Greenland against Trump’s annexation threats.)

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire for Greenland to become part of the U.S. since returning to the White House last year. During an interview with NBC's Meet the Press in May, he refused to rule out military force to annex the territory.

Now, as Trump doubles down on his threats, others in the MAGA circle have addressed the matter. Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, alluded to the U.S. one day controlling Greenland in a social media post over the weekend. Miller wrote “soon” alongside an image of a map of Greenland with the U.S. flag across the island.

The residents of Greenland elected Nielsen as Prime Minister in March last year. The vote was widely seen as pushback against the annexation threat as Nielsen campaigned against Trump’s wishes for a U.S. takeover.

Shortly after Nielsen’s win, Vice President J.D. Vance visited U.S. troops at the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” said Vance as he addressed the U.S. personnel.

In August, the top U.S. diplomat in Copenhagen was summoned by Denmark following reports that three Americans close to the President had been compiling names of citizens in Greenland keen to join a secessionist movement.

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen confirmed to TIME that he had summoned Mark Stroh, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Copenhagen, and insisted “any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom [of Denmark] will of course be unacceptable.”

Tensions flared again in December when Trump appointed Louisiana’s Gov. Jeff Landry to serve as special envoy to Greenland. “Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our national security, and will strongly advance our country’s interests for the safety, security, and survival of our allies, and indeed, the world,” Trump said of his decision.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR – FROM FUTURE WARFARE

MACRON'S NUCLEAR WARNING? FRANCE SIGNALS DETERRENCE OVER GREENLAND CRISIS

by Marco Giulio Barone 15/01/2026

MACRON'S GREENLAND POSITION

ATTACHMENT TWENTY FIVE – FROM 1440

EUROPEAN TROOPS ARRIVE IN GREENLAND AS TRUMP THROWS ANOTHER CURVEBALL

Russia said NATO members were bolstering their military presences in the Arctic territory “under the false pretext of a growing threat from Moscow and Beijing.”

Danish foreign minister scoffs at Trump's bid to take Greenland

By Yuliya Talmazan Jan. 15, 2026, 8:54 AM EST / Updated Jan. 15, 2026, 2:33 PM EST

European troops were arriving in Greenland on Thursday in a show of support, as leaders scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump’s threats were thrown another American curveball.

Trump pushed ahead with his aim of “conquering” one European territory, Denmark’s top diplomat said after a high-stakes meeting in Washington on Wednesday.

The president then sided with the man who invaded another, casting Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy rather than Russia’s Vladimir Putin as the obstacle to peace, in his latest reversal on the conflict already raging on the continent.

Trump's comments drew new pushback from leaders in Europe, whose alarm over U.S. actions had for weeks been focused farther north.

Small numbers of military personnel from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Sweden were arriving in the Arctic island early Thursday.

In an address on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would send further "land, air and sea assets" in the coming days.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said Thursday the intention was “to establish a more permanent military presence with a larger Danish contribution,” with soldiers from several NATO countries expected to be in Greenland on a rotating basis, according to Danish broadcaster DR.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a daily briefing that European troops' presence would not "impact the president's decision-making process, nor does it impact his goal of the acquisition of Greenland at all."

She also said "technical talks" with Denmark would continue.

The top diplomats from Greenland and Denmark left their talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday acknowledging “fundamental disagreement” on the future of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Trump has doubled down on his demand that the U.S. take over Greenland for national security purposes, citing what he claims is an ever-growing threat from China and Russia.

Denmark said Wednesday it was expanding its “military presence in and around Greenland” in close cooperation with NATO allies, a signal of European unity as powers on the continent aim to convince Trump that an American takeover is not necessary to protect the Arctic.

The Russian Embassy in Belgium, where NATO is headquartered, said Thursday that the alliance was “increasing its military presence there under the false pretext of a growing threat from Moscow and Beijing.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any attempts to ignore Russia’s interests in the region “will not go unanswered and will have far-reaching consequences.”

GREENLAND ECONOMY AS NATO'S ARCTIC FOOTPRINT EXPANDS

The HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen Danish navy patrol vessel docked in Nuuk in November.Juliette Pavy / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Denmark and other NATO allies have said the U.S. approach on Greenland threatens the very existence of the military alliance, already challenged by the Kremlin’s expansionist ambitions in the east.

Kyiv and its allies have worked closely with the U.S. for months, revising the proposal and securing long-sought security guarantees from Washington.

U.S. military action in Venezuela and the unrest in Iran have drawn attention from Ukraine, though it was expected that the next step would be to present the plan to Moscow, with the ball firmly in Russia’s court.

But Wednesday, Trump flipped the script yet again.

It was not Putin but Zelenskyy, he said, who was the barrier to a peace deal.

Trump told the Reuters news agency that the Kremlin was ready to make a deal, while Kyiv was more hesitant. Asked why U.S.-led negotiations had not yet resolved the war, Trump responded: “Zelenskyy.”

The Ukrainian president said late Wednesday that he was being as “productive as possible” in negotiations, but that he expected more “energy” from the American side.

It was Russia who rejected the U.S. peace plan, not Zelenskyy, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. Russia's only response was “further missile attacks on Ukrainian cities,” Tusk said Thursday, referring to a wave of attacks that have crippled Ukraine’s power grid, leaving millions in the dark.

The Kremlin, on the other hand, agreed with Trump’s assessment that Zelenskyy was at fault. "That is indeed the case," spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

BERLIN HOSTS TALKS ON POSSIBLE UKRAINE CEASEFIRE

The multiple competing crises and the scale of challenges facing European leaders are “daunting” to navigate, Meyer told NBC News.

Europe's foreign policy chief seems to agree.

The state of the world means it might be a “good moment” to start drinking, Kaja Kallas privately told lawmakers, Politico reported, citing two people in the room. Kallas' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

But it's clear that a policy of “treading lightly” with Trump is not working for Europe, Meyer said.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT – FROM

ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – FROM

ATTACHMENT 22TWENTY NINE – FROM TIME

TRUMP SAYS HE MAY TARIFF COUNTRIES THAT DON’T ‘GO ALONG WITH’ HIS GREENLAND PLANS

By Chantelle Lee Jan 16, 2026 1:54 PM ET

President Donald Trump has floated the idea of levying tariffs against countries that don’t back his plans to take over Greenland.

“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security,” Trump said on Friday, at an unrelated event at the White House. “So I may do that.”

In the aftermath of the U.S. military operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, Trump has doubled down on his desire to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. He has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. needs Greenland for “national security” reasons.

“Right now Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One earlier this month. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

While Trump has claimed that the European Union also “needs” the U.S. to take control of the territory, European leaders have strongly objected to the idea. Seven of the top leaders on the continent defended Greenland’s sovereignty in a joint statement earlier this month, saying that “it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.” And the same week, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told the U.S. to back off.

“No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation,” he said in a post on social media.

“When the President of the United States talks about ‘we need Greenland’ and connects us with Venezuela and military intervention, it’s not just wrong, it’s so disrespectful,” he said. “Our country is not an object of superpower rhetoric. We are a people. A land. And democracy. This has to be respected. Especially by close and loyal friends.”

U.S. officials met with the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark at the White House on Wednesday, but those talks failed to resolve the parties’ differences, with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen saying that there is still a “fundamental disagreement” between Denmark and the U.S. over the fate of the territory. Also on Wednesday, Denmark announced that it was bolstering its military presence on and around Greenland. Some European NATO allies, including Sweden and Germany, said they would dispatch military personnel to the territory, too.

The Trump Administration has indicated that using force could be on the table in the push to acquire Greenland, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying earlier this month that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the Commander-in-Chief’s disposal.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that a U.S. attack on Greenland would mark the end of NATO, of which both the U.S. and Denmark are founding members. Experts, meanwhile, have told TIME that taking over Greenland is not necessary for Trump to achieve his goals with respect to national security—and contended that staying in NATO is much more important to U.S. national security.

While Trump has not previously threatened to impose tariffs on nations that object to his plans for Greenland, the President has often deployed that tactic in other policy disagreements.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY – FROM TIME

Jan 14, 2026 2:17 PM ET

Americans Don’t Want Greenland. Trump Is Convinced He Can Change That

By Philip Elliott

The polling couldn’t be clearer: Americans definitely don’t want to conquer Greenland. They are not even sold on buying the semiautonomous territory that is part of Denmark and, importantly, not for sale.

That has not muted President Donald Trump’s zeal for acquiring the world’s largest island and on Wednesday he doubled-down on his real estate DNA to buy, buy, buy. “The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security,” Trump posted on social media hours before the top diplomats from Greenland and Denmark met for about 90 minutes at the White House with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

It’s a bold escalation against one the United States’ most consistent allies, a move that has left European diplomats, U.S. business executives, and even Republicans here in Washington increasingly bewildered. “I am sick of stupid,” Sen. Thom Tillis said last week in a speech about Trump’s expansionist dreams—a rare demonstration of a Republican in Congress showing they still have a spine.

But there remains a rub that leaves the President’s naysayers smarting: virtually no politician can move public opinion like Trump can among his fellow Republicans. Two weeks before U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Economist-YouGov poll found just 22% of Americans supported military action; after, it hit 40%. The main source of that jump? Support among Republicans almost doubled from 43% to 78%.

Still, it’s one thing to dethrone a brutal autocrat in a narco-state. It’s quite another to try to seize a sparsely populated plot of Arctic land. Trump is not wrong to see the geo-strategic value in the territory; Greenland sits under the most likely route for ballistic missiles to fly from Russia to the United States. He may well be very wrong in gauging the appetite for action, especially if it threatens a post-World War II peace held together by NATO.

A raft of recent polling suggests Greenland remains a tough sell, even for someone as skilled as Trump. A Reuters-Ipsos poll this week found just 17% of Americans want action on Greenland. But the partisan divide is worth heeding: 40% of Republicans approved while a meager 2% of Democrats said the same. On the question of using force, it was even more grim for the White House: 71% opposed it, including 60% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats. And on the existential question about the value of the NATO alliance, 40% of Republicans said they were concerned that Trump’s efforts to take Greenland could threaten the alliance. Among Democrats, that fear hits an almost unanimous 91%.

The Reuters numbers are not simple one-offs, either. Overall, 55% of Americans oppose the hypothetical purchase of Greenland, including 22% of Republicans, according to separate polling from Quinnipiac University. When using force is put on the table, a whopping 86% oppose the idea, including 68% of Republicans.

Trump has repeatedly shown an indifference to polling or policy that doesn’t match his perceptions. He has a history of seizing on an idea and running at it, often counting on his political base to fall in line and offset his toxic drag with Democrats. The question is often how long until his interest shifts. Recall, for a while there he was determined to make Canada a U.S. state before swerving to other fancies. He did not grow bored with the buzz about how to handle unrest in Venezuela. Ultimately, he simply decided to storm that nation and haul its leader to New York to face drug charges.

Hence, the serious stakes as one of the strangest diplomatic crises of the Trump era appeared to escalate on Wednesday. Ahead of an uneventful meeting at the White House, Denmark announced it was to increase “military presence in and around Greenland in the coming period, involving aircraft, ships, and soldiers” in cooperation with NATO allies. From the White House came a different message: a cartoon of Greenland dogsleds facing a choice between the White House or the Great Wall of China and the Russian Kremlin. Sticking with Denmark, in the drawing, was not an option, which explains why so many are unable to write this latest Trump tantrum as something that can be ridden out. The big unknown, of course, is how long Trump is willing to stay selling the idea, and whether Republicans will bend to his predilections.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX – FROM NBC

TRUMP SAYS HE'LL HIT DENMARK AND 7 OTHER COUNTRIES WITH NEW TARIFFS UNTIL THERE'S A DEAL TO BUY GREENLAND

Trump said the 10% duties on eight European countries would increase to 25% on June 1 unless a deal is reached.

By Steve Kopack Jan. 17, 2026, 11:46 AM EST / Updated Jan. 17, 2026, 3:23 PM EST

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would impose a new 10% tariff on Denmark and seven other European countries until “a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

The other countries affected would be Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland.

Trump said the duties would increase to 25% if a deal is not reached by June 1.

“China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!” he added.

Trump also pointed to joint security exercises around Greenland between Denmark and other European allies, calling them a “very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet.”

“Therefore, it is imperative that, in order to protect Global Peace and Security, strong measures be taken so that this potentially perilous situation end quickly, and without question,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s announcement was the latest step in a sharp escalation in tensions between the U.S. and some of its closest allies in Europe. Any direct confrontation would threaten to undo 70 years of security and stability in the Atlantic under the NATO alliance.

Already, the U.S. has a trade framework agreement with the European Union capping tariffs at 15% and an agreement with the United Kingdom capping tariffs on imports at 10%. It was not immediately clear if the new tariffs would void that deal or be in addition to those rates.

The E.U. is America’s largest trading partner and its largest source of imports.

“The EU stands in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in a joint statement.

The new tariffs “would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” they added. “Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty.”

"The European Union will always be very firm in defending international law, wherever it may be, and of course, starting within the territory of the European Union's member states," Costa said in a press conference on Saturday about a separate trade deal signing.

The chairman of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, Bernd Lange, called the new tariffs “unbelievable.”

Manfred Weber, the leader of the largest party in the European Parliament said that "given Donald Trump's threats regarding Greenland," approval of the E.U.'s trade deal with the U.S. "must be put on hold."

“Applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement. “We will of course be pursuing this directly with the U.S. administration.”

Denmark said it was surprised by Trump's announcement. "We agree with the US that we need to do more since the Arctic is no longer a low tension area," the Danish foreign ministry said in an email. "That’s exactly why we and NATO partners are stepping up in full transparency with our American allies."

"We are in close contact with the European Commission and our other partners on the issue," it added.

"We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed," said Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson in a statement. "Only Denmark and Greenland decide on issues concerning Denmark and Greenland."

Germany’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it was working with other E.U. member states on coordinated response.

French president Emmanuel Macron said "no intimidation nor threat will influence us," adding that "tariff threats are unacceptable."

Macron said he too would consult European partners on a response.

Last week, European troops began arriving in Greenland in a show of support for the island territory, which is part of Denmark.

On Wednesday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his nation, at the request of Denmark, had sent military officers to Greenland to help plan the Danish-allied joint security exercise “Operation Arctic Endurance.”

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters Friday after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “it’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”

Rasmussen said he told the Trump administration that “this is not in the interest of the kingdom.”

The new tariffs would come as the Trump administration battles widespread cost-of-living issues facing consumers in the U.S.

In November, the administration walked back some food tariffs. The president has also called for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates and has ordered government-controlled entities to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to drive down mortgage rates.

Increasing tariffs on European countries could lead to higher prices on everything from pharmaceuticals to aircraft parts.

Germany, one of the countries named by Trump on Saturday, is a large source of industrial and pharmaceutical imports to the U.S.

“President Trump is completely wrong to announce tariffs on the UK over Greenland,” Kemi Badenoch, leader of the U.K.’s Conservative Party, said on social media. “People in both UK and US will face higher costs.”

The U.K. has sent just one military officer to Greenland as of Saturday, Sky News reported.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., responded to the president’s announcement on Fox News, saying that Trump “is right that Greenland is vital for the national security interests of the United States.” Cotton added “the best decision probably would be to acquire Greenland from Denmark.”

"These tariffs are unnecessary, punitive, and a profound mistake," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a social media post.

"This response to our own allies for sending a small number of troops to Greenland for training is bad for America, bad for American businesses, and bad for America's allies," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said on X.

"Continuing down this path is bad for America, bad for American businesses and bad for America’s allies," Sens. Jeanne Shaneen, D-N.H., and Tillis added in a bipartisan statement. "This kind of rhetoric also further helps adversaries like Putin and Xi who want to see NATO divided."

"Our allies deserve better, and so do the American people who have made their opposition to this flawed policy resoundingly clear," the two senators continued. "At a time when many Americans are already concerned about the cost of living, these tariffs would raise prices for both families and businesses."

It was not immediately clear under what authority the new tariffs would be applied. Currently, tariffs on the U.K. and E.U. have been applied using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The Supreme Court is set to rule any day on whether that law grants Trump the authority to impose his country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN – FROM THE HILL

TRUMP, KUSHNER LAUNCH BOARD OF PEACE AT DAVOS — WITHOUT EU PARTNERS

by Julia Manchester - 01/22/26 8:43 AM ET

President Trump and his administration rolled out the Board of Peace initiative for Gaza in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, featuring leaders of more than 20 countries that notably did not include major European Union allies.

Countries that have agreed to join the board include Argentina, Belarus, Morocco, Vietnam, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kosovo, Hungary, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

The White House initially included a list Thursday that included Belgium as a member, however the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot said otherwise.

“Belgium has NOT signed the Charter of the Board of Peace. This announcement is incorrect,” Prevot wrote in a post on social media. “We wish for a common and coordinated European response. As many European countries, we have reservations to the proposal.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb noted in an interview with CBS News that Finland and a number of other European countries cannot initially join because they need parliamentary approval to do so in their own countries.

“One is that this is an international organization, which, basically, then needs parliamentary approval. So, you know, we are liberal democracies. We can’t come here and say, ‘OK, here’s the statute,’” Stubb told the network.

“The other one is that we want to link it even more closer to the U.N. So I think, for instance, that the Gaza peace board is based on a U.N. mandate, which is really good. So now we just need to make sure that some of the other mandates can be put into the U.N. as well. But we’ll see what the other Europeans do and what we do together. I think it’s a good initiative,” he continued.

The unveiling of the proposal came a day after Trump railed against several European allies in his push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland. That has included increased tensions with French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Several European leaders have been unnerved by the forming of the board and whether it would replace the United Nations Security Council.

Trump and members of his administration, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, detailed their vision for Gaza’s future, including a presentation that included proposals for an airport, data centers, workforce housing and tourist attractions along the coast of the war-torn enclave.

Ali Sha’ath, the Palestinian official leading the Gaza Strip’s newly formed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, also announced the reopening of the Rafah Crossing, Gaza’s main exit and entry point to and from Egypt.

During the signing ceremony, Secretary of State Marco Rubio anticipated more countries would join the Board of Peace charter in the future.

“Many others who are going to join, you know, others either are not in town today or they have to go through some procedure internally in their own countries, in their own country, because of constitutional limitations. But others will join,” Rubio said.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT – FROM THE BBC

UK HOLDS OFF JOINING TRUMP'S BOARD OF PEACE OVER PUTIN CONCERNS

By Joshua Nevett

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the UK will not yet be signing up to US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace over concerns about Russian leader Vladimir Putin's possible participation.

Cooper told the BBC the UK had been invited to join the board but "won't be one of the signatories today" at a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The board, which gives Trump wide decision-making powers as chairman, is being billed by the US as a new international organisation for resolving conflicts.

Cooper described the board as a "legal treaty that raises much broader issues" than the initiative's initial focus on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The charter proposed by the White House does not mention the Palestinian territory and critics say the board appears to be designed to replace some functions of the United Nations.

Some of the US's traditional allies have not agreed to join the board and notably, none of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, and the UK - have committed to participation so far.

The UN Security Council has been the main international platform for global diplomacy and conflict resolution since the end of World War Two.

But launching the board at a signing ceremony alongside world leaders in Davos, Trump said he did not intend it as a replacement for the UN and expressed his belief that it would help forge an "everlasting" peace in the Middle East.

Trump said the board had the chance to be "one of the most consequential bodies ever created".

"We're committed to ensuring Gaza is demilitarised, properly governed and beautifully rebuilt," Trump said. "It's going to be a great plan and this is where the board of peace started."

Trump said once the board had been completely formed, "we can do pretty much whatever we want to do".

"But we'll do it in conjunction with the United Nations," he added.

President Trump was joined by the leaders and representatives of 19 countries for the Board of Peace signing ceremony, including Argentina, Hungary, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

President Trump also said Putin had accepted an invitation to join the initiative.

But the Russian president has not confirmed this and earlier he said his country was still studying the invitation.

Putin said the idea of using Russian assets frozen in the US as a contribution to the board would be discussed at a meeting with representatives of the Trump administration later on Thursday, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Trump to meet Zelensky as US envoy says ending war with Russia down to one issue

Putin invited to join US-led Gaza 'Board of Peace', Trump says

Who is on Trump's 'Board of Peace' overseeing Gaza's reconstruction?

Speaking to the BBC's Breakfast programme from Davos, Cooper said the UK had received an invitation to join the board and strongly supported Trump's 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza.

"That's why we are also clear we want to play our part in phase two of the Gaza peace process," Cooper said.

But she added: "We won't be one of the signatories today because this is a legal treaty that raises much broader issues.

"And we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something that's talking about peace when we've still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be commitment to peace in Ukraine."

She said Putin had shown no willingness "to come and make that agreement and that's where the pressure needs to be now".

"But we will have continuing international discussions including with our allies," the foreign secretary said.

Diplomatic relations between the US and the UK are on shakier ground after Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European nations if his demand to hand control of Greenland to his country was not met.

But Trump appears to have backed down, saying the US was exploring a potential deal on Greenland after talks with the Nato security alliance, as he dropped planned tariffs on eight European countries and ruled out using force to take the island.

Cooper welcomed the apparent climbdown on Greenland and said the UK and its European allies had put forward "positive, constructive proposals" on security in the Arctic.

But when asked about the Board of Peace, Cooper echoed other UK cabinet ministers who in recent days have been expressing concerns over Putin's potential role in the scheme, given Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The UK has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies and together with France, signed a declaration of intent on deploying troops to the country if a peace deal is made with Russia.

Trump's Board of Peace was originally unveiled by the White House as part of a plan to rebuild Gaza and design its future governance.

But the leaked text of the board's founding charter goes far beyond that purpose.

The text says the board would be "an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict".

The leaked document says the Board of Peace's charter will enter into force once three states formally agree to be bound by it, with member states given renewable three-year terms and permanent seats available to those contributing $1bn (£740m), it said.

The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman - and separately as the US representative - and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.

Last Friday, the White House named seven members of the founding Executive Board, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

More have now said they will join it, including Pakistan, Egypt and Qatar.

The Vatican has said the Pope has also received an invitation.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – FROM CNBC

TRUMP INTERVIEW: PRESIDENT TELLS CNBC ‘WE HAVE A CONCEPT OF A DEAL’ OVER GREENLAND

By Kevin Breuninger, Spencer Kimball and Alex Harring Jan. 22^nd, 2026

President Donald Trump discussed the framework of a deal with NATO, credit card caps and the future of the Federal Reserve in a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

Trump spoke with CNBC shortly after announcing that he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte have “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.” The president told CNBC that “we have a concept of a deal” over the Arctic island.

Elsewhere on global issues, Trump said Iran should “stop with the nuclear.” Iran had stopped killing protestors after he warned of military action, Trump added.

When it comes to searching for Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s successor, Trump said he was down to “maybe one, in my mind,” but declined to say who. Trump once again blasted Powell over renovations to the central bank, saying the Fed chief was either “incompetent” or “crooked.”

Trump called his push for a temporary cap on credit card interest rates an idea he loves. However, he admitted that the policy “sounds like the mayor of New York ... came up with that.”

His Wednesday interview follows a closely watched address at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in the day. Trump criticized Europe during the speech while touting his record on domestic economic matters.

Highlights from the interview:

ATTACHMENT THIRTY – FROM DW (GERMANY)

US-NATO DEAL: RELIEF AND MISTRUST IN GREENLAND

A "framework" agreement between the US and NATO has defused the dispute over Greenland. There is cautious relief among residents, but also fear of becoming a geopolitical pawn once again.

By Andreas Noll Jan. 23, 2026

It's business as usual now in front of the United States consulate in Greenland's capital of Nuuk. But just a few days ago, angry Greenlanders were waving flags here in protest against US President Donald Trump's plans to annex the Arctic island.

Since the announcement of a "deal" on the the country's future on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, there has been a sense of relief, human rights activist and Nuuk resident Najannguaq Christensen told DW.

But there is also uncertainty. "I'm not quite sure that it's a deal... from our perspective, it's just Donald Trump being Donald Trump," he said, adding that while there have been big announcements, little tangible action has followed. Meanwhile, Greenland hasn't really been involved in the conversation.

Marathon negotiations begin

That is now set to change, however. On Friday afternoon, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen traveled to Greenland "to show our strong support for Greenland's people at a difficult time." Frederiksen wants to discuss next steps with the government of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen is glad that the threats of US military intervention are off the table for now, having repeatedly stated that no one has the mandate to negotiate agreements about the country without the involvement of its government.

Denmark's Frederiksen takes a similar view, but after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Friday, she emphasized that defense and security in the Arctic are a matter for NATO as a whole. Copenhagen announced that talks with the US would start promptly.

What does the 'deal' entail?

Activist Christensen said that people in Greenland are now waiting for details on what to expect. No clear, publicly available document is available so far, only different interpretations of the framework agreement announced in Davos.

According to the US, the parties agreed on a permanent safeguard for American interests in the Arctic. This involves military, strategic, and economic issues. NATO chief Mark Rutte, on the other hand, spoke primarily about a security cooperation, making no mention of Denmark or Greenland renouncing their rights.

The current agreement on stationing US forces in Greenland, which dates back to 1951, could be amended. This agreement allows the US to use Greenland for military purposes and to operate military facilities within the framework of joint defense. Unlike during the Cold War, when the US was active at over 20 locations in the country at times, today it operates only the Pituffik Space Base there.

The key to Trump's 'Golden Dome' plans

Greenland could become even more important for US early warning and interception systems in the future. Trump has repeatedly described the country as crucial to his planned "Golden Dome" missile defense system, though it remains unclear how the island would actually be involved.

Greenland is also important to the US because of its location at the so-called GIUK gap. Whoever controls the bottleneck between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom can influence access from the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. At a time of growing tensions with Russia, this geopolitical location is becoming important once again.

Economic interests

In addition to security issues, Trump is also thinking in economic terms. Greenland has minerals that are important for the defense and high-tech industries, where the US wants to prevent China from gaining influence.

This is a sensitive issue in Nuuk. Since the beginning of extended self-government in 2009, Greenland has controlled its own mineral resources. Exclusive access or special rights for the US would be seen as an infringement on its sovereignty.

The conflict over Greenland is not only representative of US President Donald Trump's political style, but also reflects a larger shift. Climate change is opening up routes and making resources in the Arctic more accessible, forcing the major powers to review their strategies.

Uncertainty remains after de-escalation

Greenland is ready to cooperate with the US on security, defense, and investment—but not on a takeover, Christensen said. Following the Davos announcement, many Greenlanders are relieved that military escalation is off the table for now.

Even though Trump spoke of a permanent agreement, recent months have shown that the tone in Washington can change at any time. As a result, Christensen said that he senses a great deal of uncertainty on the island.

Ultimate goal: independence

The political situation in Greenland, which has a population of 56,000, is complicated. Both the ruling and opposition parties are pursuing the long-term goal of independence. But the crisis sparked by Trump's demands to make it a US territory has put the urgency of this demand into perspective.

"We have already already been colonized once," Christensen said. "We do not want to be colonized twice."

This article was originally written in German.