'We need Greenland': Trump repeats threat to annex Danish territory | Hacker News Reader

'We need Greenland': Trump repeats threat to annex Danish territory

bbc.com

41 pointsonemoresoop19 comments

Here's primary-source links to the full statements by Greenland's PM (in dual Greenlandic / Danish)[0] and Denmark's PM (in Danish)[1].

[0] https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1457648783035292

[1] https://stm.dk/presse/pressemeddelelser/2025/udtalelse-fra-s...

US–Denmark Treaty of the Danish West Indies:

> During 1916, the two sides agreed to a sale price of $25,000,000, and the United States accepted a Danish demand for a declaration stating that they would "not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland".

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

US already has access to Greenland. It has bases, they can expand if they want, and they even may be able to extract natural resources from it (don't know the current status). This is completely unnecessary from a military/resources standpoint.

From my POV trust in the US is already completely broken, and people is pretty worried.

Some of the MAGA people seem to say that that's exactly what they want, to make Europe wake up and take care of itself. Which is a good thing from my POV as Europe as an entity has been doing pretty bad decisions, and some of the european countries too (I think Trump was right about the nordstream).

Now, what I don't think americans understand is that Europe is not the memes they see in the Internet. Europe is not just a bunch of lefties shitting on the US, in fact we consume US products and services, we pour enormous amounts of money into US financial markets, US has plenty of bases here, there's a lot of intel exchange, etc.

I wonder if americans understand what pushing Europe into survival mode means. In, maybe, sooner than 20 years the Pax Americana will be completely over. US will have no allies (Who? Latin America, with only transactional ties due to shared history? Rusia, with a decaying pop and GDP closer to Italy?) and you'll fail to deter China from becoming the global power.

Because I guess nobody in the US believes China will just sit and watch, right?

If it wasn't for China, this would be the world order Dugin et al wanted. If democrats weren't right about Trump being a Putin puppet, they were pretty close.

https://archive.is/g34IZ

Of course it came to that, because Putin hasn't a clue about what he's doing.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but it seems like Putin is well on his way to accomplishing his every goal

Considering the response of European leadership to kidnapping of Maduro, I don't think Trump will even need to fight Europe to annex Greenland. They'll give it up voluntarily, maybe throw in Iceland as a bonus to show His Lordship how loyal his vassals are. They are a colonized people.

And what do you suggest EU does if Trump decides to invade Greenland ? Going to war against Putin could be considered, but trying to fight both Trump and Putin would be suicidal.

Unfortunately it seems the only option at the moment is to wait for American people to wake up and replace Trump in two years from now ... If they ever have the opportunity to vote again of course.

Will whoever replaces Trump do things any differently in this area? Harvard-Harris polled Americans last month and found strong majority support for the U.S. arresting Maduro: https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HHP... (page 53). 83% of Democrats said Maduro should be removed, and 73% of Democrats who thought Maduro should be removed though the U.S. should do it. So 60% net. America seems to be in a Manifest Destiny mood, not just Trump.

Greenland has tremendous mineral resources and Denmark doesn’t have the capacity to extract them. If the U.S. decides that it needs to keep China from stepping in and developing Greenland’s resources, then it will do what it needs to do. Trump will just be boisterously upfront about it.

So you don’t believe in the free market?

I believe in free markets within a single jurisdiction. Even expanding to multiple states poses problems: e.g. Tennessee can use freedom of commerce domestically undercut labor and environmental regimes California want. And if you zoom out further to include geopolitics and government intervention in seeking critical resources, then no, I don’t believe in the free market for that. I believe that each country is a distinct economic actor in an anarchy of nations.

> Maduro and his top people have all been indicted by the United States for narco-terrorism and other charges, and there is a $50 million reward for his capture by the U.S. government. Maduro lost the last election and he has tanked the economy, but kept in power anyway and as a result millions of Venezuelans have entered the US. Should we arrest Maduro and take him to the U.S. to face trial or not try to arrest him? Given this situation on the ground, should the president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro be removed from office or not?

This is the very definition of a leading question, with extremely slanted language at that. Judging by others instances of this in the poll, I can’t take this pollster seriously.

> Greenland has tremendous mineral resources and Denmark doesn’t have the capacity to extract them. If the U.S. decides that it needs to keep China from stepping in and developing Greenland’s resources, then it will do what it needs to do. Trump will just be boisterously upfront about it.

"We've always been at war with Eastasia"

5 years ago did you picture yourself defending the United States invading Greenland? Absolutely wild to watch the Overton Window move.

It's been fascinating in a very morbid way. And it makes you wonder: where is the line? Or even: Is there a line?

> ...wait for American people to wake up and replace Trump in two years from now ...

Probably not going to happen. Too much of the American economy depends on the massive grift continuing. The average citizen’s impact on policy before 2016 was already quite small; today it’s practically infinitesimal.

Put French nukes in Greenland and the issue becomes moot.

Not everyone in EU is huffing Qatar's gas money, to write eulogies for Hamas, Hezbolla, Cartel del Sol and other psychopaths. Surprising, I know.

Here is a recent picture, taken during discussions about Greenland: https://bilder.deutschlandfunk.de/72/d7/aa/c5/72d7aac5-be14-...

You probably recognise the woman on the left, the PM of Denmark.

You may not recognise the dude on the right, but he comes from a country that gave us the motto which vocally expresses the solidarity he is physically expressing in the pic: "all for one, and one for all"

If we may talk brass tacks, he also has several boomers that could lob a bus or a few at the new White House ballroom. Half an hour flight time if they didn't bother to leave their home base; shorter than that if they fired from somewhere in the Atlantic: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/17070508372...

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