US attack on Venezuela raises fears of future Greenland takeover

So far the French president is welcoming what happened in Venezuela. How do you imagine he feels about the implications for Greenland and Europe?

> In 1887 a German-born, long-time Merck employee, Theodore Weicker, went to the United States to represent Merck Group.[8] In 1891, with $200,000 received from E. Merck, Weicker started Merck & Co., with headquarters in lower Manhattan. ...

> After the U.S. entered World War I, due to its German connections, Merck & Co. was the subject of expropriation under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917.[10] The government seized 80 percent of the shares owned by the German parent company and sold it. ... Merck & Co. holds the trademark rights to the "Merck" name in the United States and Canada, while its former parent company retains the rights in the rest of the world; the right to use the Merck name was the subject of litigation between the two companies in 2016.

Interesting. what would be in the best interests of Taiwan here? It seems Europe is even less likely to shield it from Chinese aggression/invasion.

While I appreciate your sentiment, we really need to stop with this specific type of pearl clutching.

The current president’s mental and physical condition is deteriorating rapidly. He will be lucky to make it through the current term in a functional state.

Adding another number of years to his time in office would mean that he almost literally would need to be propped up by his caretakers.

Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? No, and it’s not even close, imho.

There is plenty of commentary that can be made about the political machine behind him, but let’s not project that to the dotard currently in office.

EU restarted domestic production of millitary equipment.

Germany is making military draft mandatory again.

Noone believes US will help like they did before (we know it was a two way deal but still..)

The moment US left EU to Russia they are now all alone. NATO is just a name now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...

Other than probably hundreds of similar scenarios over the past 250 years or so, sure.

All those things have lots of precedent for the USA.

There's also Maduro's dancing which seems to have been a thing oddly enough https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360920843/maduros-dancing...

Indeed. That's why I said he's desperate to be remembered. For something.

Also, charges of war crimes are more serious than charges of drug trafficing.

Nobody cared when Putin or Trump were abusing their own citizens. It’s when they invade other countries where the problem begins.

However, if you think through the scenarios, the US is in a very strong military position and there's not much Denmark or the EU as a whole would be able to do about it. They could threaten a direct military response, on the basis of making the annexation more trouble than it's worth, but then you're just playing chicken with a significantly crazier enemy.

Most likely the EU would try to calm the waters, and offer a compromise peace / surrender plan along the lines of the one the US has offered Russia in Ukraine.

The biggest obstacle ought to be political opposition and public protests within the US itself, but right now the US government is in a position to just move fast and make things happen, what with the weak Congress and compliant Supreme Court.

I hope and believe it'll become much less likely after the midterms, with a Democrat-led Congress motivated to push back against the executive's excesses.

On HN you will find people from a lot of different countries with a lot of different viewpoints. The main reason politics (and religion) are mostly taboo on here is because those subjects tend to polarize and turn the place into yet another shithole. So I can see why there is a strong push to keep those off the site.

But at the same time I'm realistic enough to know that everything has a political angle and that you can not solve a problem like this by denying its existence. That just makes it a bigger problem.

The mods here have an un-enviable job, they walk a very fine line with an extremely smart audience, and they are doing an absolutely amazing job of it given that most people would fail in that position in about 30 seconds flat. It is as even handed as you could possibly make it. But flagging is not a moderator action, it is the users and I've seen them be abused more than once, either because of personal dislikes or because of brigading.

Even so, you'd be hard pressed to find a place with better discourse on a large variety of subjects.

Some of the community do, a lot don't, probably the majority.

There's no contradiction if you assume there needn't be an overlap.

It states the goal is to help Europe operate as a "group of aligned sovereign nations" rather than a unified political or economic entity.

It explicitly calls for "cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations."

It claims that the EU and other "transnational bodies" are responsible for a "stark prospect of civilizational erasure."

It attacks the EU’s regulatory framework, calling it "economic suicide" and "stifling regulation". Suggesting that the U.S. will prioritize trade and technology sharing with "aligned countries" that reject these EU standards, creating economic incentives for member states to break away from EU-wide rules.

It emphasizes building up "the healthy nations of central, eastern, and southern Europe"—specifically those that "want to restore their former greatness"

So I'm not sure if the above is his main intention, or if he is telling Greenland to join the EU (altruism? hmmm), or if we're witnessing how he sent his businesses bankrupt [1] , or if I'm missing something.

[1] https://archive.ph/mIJAA ( https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helpe... )

Trump specialises in sending his businesses, hotels and casinos bankrupt, to the point banks stopped lending him money, so he turned to the Russian oligarchy for funding.

https://www.arctictoday.com/the-seven-steps-to-greenlandic-i...

>>While a majority of Greenland's 57,000 inhabitants support independence, there is division over the timing and potential impact on living standards.

https://www.reuters.com/world/greenlands-leader-steps-up-pus...

As you can see here there's only one party (with 7.4%) in Greenland who is against independence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Greenlandic_general_elect...

One would say that paints a pretty clear picture.

>So if the choice were to be "Be a part of Denmark" or "Be a part of the US", the majority would stick with Denmark.

Or maybe the third choice..be independent?