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Comment by danieljacksonno | Hacker News Reader

Trump has several times threatened to take Greenland, by military force if necessary. He categorically has "not ruled out" military force against a NATO ally.

First source, but there are many: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/04/world/greenland-annexatio...

This has, for obvious reasons, been huge news in all of Europe and especially in Denmark.

I'm sure MAGA Americans want to hand-wave it away, and since Trump is so difficult to understand and says so many whacky things, we're all hoping he doesn't mean it, but it's underscored the need to quickly get independent of the USA.

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See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=44340630

Trump says many things that nobody actually believes.

Edit: @ujkhsjkdhf234 Answering your question from below here:

>Trump says many things no one believes then he does. Stop steelmanning for Trump.

That's actually a good political strategy in tough times: Keep your opponents always unsure about what you're gonna do next. Why do you think Putin invaded Ukraine under Biden and not under Trump?

Trump says many things no one believes then he does. His supporters often play it off as he's joking and then whoops turns out he does it. Stop excusing Trump and take his words seriously.

> Trump says many things that nobody actually believes.

It's not a valid argument to use the general case here. Because in the case of this particular statement, it clearly isn't true that "nobody actually believes" it. It's clear that many people actually believe it.

> That's actually a good political strategy in tough times: Keep your opponents always unsure about what you're gonna do next.

I mean, sure. But in this case Denmark thought they were an ally, not an opponent. Should they also be unsure about whether one of their territories is going to be attacked?

Or are they, after all, an opponent?

> Trump says many things that nobody actually believes.

I've made this point so many times before but I'll say it again: Trump being either an idiot or a liar is not a valid defense of Trump. Nor is it a "good political strategy".

Also, it's not tough times. I know it doesn't feel that way because Trump is acting as though he requires powers only endowed in times of war, but no, it is not tough times.

It doesn't matter Trump says many random things.

What matters is that the President of the US has said so.

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