Hey guys, I want to take over your country!
By Kiron Kasbekar | 06 Oct 2023
Was it Donald Trump’s excessive ambition, or bravado, which he displayed when he told Denmark that he was going to take over Greenland from that country?
In mid-August 2019, Donald Trump, then President of the United States of America, made a grand announcement. He said he was going to buy Greenland from Denmark.
Coming from Trump, it became a big joke; but had he been able to swing it, it would have been the biggest territorial acquisition by the United States since its creation on 4th July 1776.
People in Greenland and Denmark were shocked and enraged when they heard about the proposal. Just as people in America would be if they heard that a Japanese premier wanted to buy Texas. Actually, if you go by land area, then Trump would have been buying Texas, Arizona, Colorado, California, and more.
But Greenland was not up for sale.
The Danish prime minister called the idea of such a sale simply “absurd”. The rest of the world was amused, and the whole thing became, as I said, a big joke. But Trump, apparently, had been serious about it, calling it “a large real estate deal”.
Now hadn’t the US purchased Alaska from the Russians a century and a half ago? And California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and a part of New Mexico from the Mexicans? And Louisiana from the French?
Trump, ever the real estate man, sought to build on his reputation of deal-making to attempt a super-Alaska, super-Louisiana, super-everything else purchase.
And then there was this. I guess Trump wanted to feel on top of the world. If you look at the world map, you will find that Greenland is in an almost symmetrically opposite direction as Alaska. As far as the United States is concerned. But, more than that, it would have given the US an expanded arc of direct control.
And more. It would have given the US a chunk of territory next to continental Europe and politically a piece of that continent, which would have sounded even better than having got a piece adjacent to Siberia. Not just that, it would have given the US land in Europe that is bigger than France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK thrown together!
Greenland is over 42 per cent bigger than Alaska, acquired in 1867. And also much bigger than the Louisiana and Mexican acquisitions in 1803 and 1848 respectively. So that must have been Trump’s idea of throwing a trump card before American voters. He was trying to pull off the biggest territorial acquisition in American history!
And with that position and size, it would have been literally and figuratively in pole position to dictate terms to all of Europe, including Russia.
Of course, if he had been able to pull it off, it would have been sensational. But it was nothing more than an empty boast. The Danes had not even been approached, let alone their agreeing to the deal, imaginary as it was.
When William H. Seward, the 24th United States secretary of state, signed the deal to take over Alaska from the Russians, many politicians called it Seward’s Folly. It was actually a bonanza, windfall, or jackpot – however you wish to describe it – for the United States.
What Trump had was a damp squib.
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