Why Trump’s chaotic pursuit of Greenland shows only one rule applies in his dangerous global power-grab

Donald Trump publicly signalled that he wanted to grab Greenland for the US before he was formally installed as the 47th President.

Now, a year into his administration, the future of the ice-clad mega-island lies at the centre of a clash between Western civilisations and a potential trade war. But here, understanding the jumble of global contradictions that Mr Trump’s latest fetish for another country’s land can reveal, there’s method, as well as outright madness, in his relations with the outside world.

Trump has undone almost every branch of American democracy. In doing so, he has served the interests of America’s greatest rival, Russia, in ways that apparently make no sense and are hard to fathom.

Outside the US, he has backed Russia over Ukraine, undermining the scaffolding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

His national security strategy has adopted outright nonsense from the darker corners of social media, saying that Europe is on the verge of civilisation erasure as fact.

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In doing so he has behaved as only a former KGB officer, like Vladimir Putin, could have dreamed – enfeebling Europe and undermining the military alliance the Kremlin sees as most threatening.

Trump’s America First policy has veered from a promise to focus on domestic issues, and forsake foreign interventions, to the use of force to remove Venezuela’s president, kill un-tried, alleged smugglers, on the high seas, and bomb Iran – all arguably illegal under international law.

He has even now said that Venezuela will be run by him and that he’ll keep its oil revenues to spend as he sees fit. And if Caracas doesn’t like that, he’ll attack Venezuela again.

This might-is-right attitude echoes Putin’s approach to his neighbours, notably Georgia and Ukraine – both of which the Russian president has invaded and ultimately wants to re-colonise.

So all very pro-Russian so far.

But then we come back to Greenland which, Trump and his administration insist, must be brought under US sovereignty to protect it against Russian, and Chinese, threats and depredations.

They also point out that control of Greenland would help in protecting the sea passages of the Arctic north which Russia is aggressively opening with a fleet of new icebreakers.

The North Atlantic is also the key route used by Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers to bust sanctions, flog oil around the world, and fund its war with Ukraine.

It’s home to Russia’s fleet of nuclear submarines where Russia, and to a lesser extent, China, is perceived as the Big Threats by the Trump administration just as it has been by every past president since WW2.

The US had at least 17 bases and around 15,000 military personnel in Greenland at the height of the Cold War - part of Nato’s early warning systems for the US. America still has the right to almost unlimited military investment there if needed.

That is not enough for Trump – he wants his country to own the vast landscape which is slowly going to give up its mineral wealth to mining giants as ice gives way to climate change.

Europe, including the UK, is on the verge of a trade and tariffs war with the US now as ministers prepare an economic counter strike against Trump that could cost both sides dearly and has already caused share prices to tumble and gold to climb.

This is where Trump reveals some method – or strategic intent. He has been plain speaking about how he wants to re-establish American dominance over the western hemisphere of the globe. He does not care about the economic chaos his threats to Greenland and the existence of Nato have brought.

“Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he said this year.

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That same strategy sees Europe as fading and failing and is consistent with Trump’s long-term view of the world divided into three spheres of interest: America’s the west, Russia gets its chunk, and the rest goes to China.

It is now clear that Trump no longer sees Europe as a natural part of the western hemisphere he wants to continue to control. He may have been convinced by Putin, or he may have simply reached his own conclusion that the European nations, especially of the east, are not strategic assets for America.

And that the Europeans should pay for their own defence, against Russia, themselves.

In that context, Trump wants to establish a “Golden Dome” of missile defences defending America with its outer edge in Greenland. So it makes sense, from his perspective, to own the island, own its resources, and leave Europe to handle its own squabbles with Putin.

The key here is not just the location of Greenland, it is Trump’s conclusion that, in terms of protecting and dominating US access to essential minerals and rare earths, Americans have been asleep at the wheel while China has raced ahead.

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Brazil, Chile, Peru and Venezuela all count China as a main trading partner, according to Chatham House’s David Lubin.

Much, or most, of that trade is in Chinese investments in mining and the extraction of critical ores.

Between them, Chile and Argentina hold about half the world’s lithium reserves. Peru and Chile hold about 30 per cent of the world’s copper. Venezuela has what is believed to be the biggest reserve of oil on earth as well as gold, bauxite and iron ore.

Bolivia has the biggest lithium deposits – 20-25 per cent – Brazil’s got lots of iron ore, nickel and manganese.

Small wonder that as Trump retreats from the global, into a western sphere run by the US, he will want his country to wrestle control of these resources, vital for defence and energy, from China. Beijing already controls up to 40 per cent of the world’s rare earths and up to 90 per cent of its rare earth processing capacity.

Greenland has some special minerals known as heavy rare earths. They are the most scarce and defence critical and have Star Trek type names: dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, neodymium, praseodymium.

The island in the high north holds up to 12 per cent of the world’s reserves of these rare earths which are essential in missile guidance systems, radar, jet engines and magnets. Greenland has one of the biggest deposits of these special minerals outside of China’s control.

Not content to leave it at Greenland, Trump helped Argentina out of a tight spot with a currency swap facility. He abducted Venezuela’s president, threatened Colombia and will, no doubt, continue to flex America’s economic and military muscles in the south.

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Trump is also eyeing mineral deals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where civil war, invasion, ethnic strife and general chaos has driven many investors away, but not China – which has state backing for strategic investment.

The DRC produces about 70 per cent of the world’s mined cobalt, and most of that is controlled by Chinese companies. It also produces at least 30 per cent of the world’s coltan, which is essential for the production of all computers.

Trump claims to have brought peace to the east of the DRC where Rwandan-backed rebels run a vast network of mines. But he has also considered backing the central government’s efforts to recapture the mineral-rich region in return for minerals.

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Over the last year his only pro-Ukrainian engagement has been in forging a minerals deal with Kyiv which gives the US ownership of up to 50 per cent of future profits from new investments in mineral extraction in return for not abandoning Ukraine altogether. It’s a good deal for the US, but not one he is strategically wedded to.

Ukraine is, in Trump’s view, firmly in Russia’s sphere. He has signed up to the Russia lie that President Volodymyr Zelensky is illegitimate (he was elected in 2019) and has backed the Kremlin’s land grab of at least 20 per cent of the country.

America’s Nato allies are rushing to reassure him that they, too, are part of the defence of Greenland. Sending a small naval flotilla to its waters is a gesture of support of the very idea of a North Atlantic alliance with the US and to offset his threats to smash that alliance by trying to take over the island itself.

This is where his strategic “method” begins to break down.

“He doesn’t realise that the security of the United State’s eastern seaboard is guaranteed by Nato. The US can’t possibly defend it all and can’t police the high north either without Nato’s help. Nato need the US but he has not seen that it cuts both ways. The US needs Nato. His staff realize that – and his military certainly do,” a senior Nato general told The Independent.

But he seems to hold Europe, which provides the bulk of Nato’s forces which are, added up, about double the size of the US and have more tanks, artillery, personnel and aircraft than the US, in very low esteem. So much so that he appears indifferent to whether Putin grabs more of Europe or not.

This is part of his madness. And driven, according to a former White House adviser on Russia from his first term, his relationship with Putin.

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“It is a man crush. It’s because Putin’s the badass. He’s what Trump would like to be,” Fiona Hill told The Independent podcast ‘World of Trouble’.

“Trump looks at people who are frankly in charge of everything, who have the kind of, basically, the bling. You know, they’re emblazoned in gold. And that’s what he wants to be. And he believes that he is elevated in everybody’s minds, by their association, by being in their company.

“And that’s what Putin’s got on him. Putin’s got his number. Putin realises he is a man with a very fragile ego, and that he’s somebody that can be manipulated.”

So Trump is trying to build a world around three men. China’s Xi Jinping, Putin, and himself.

“Trump himself is wanting to be recognised by absolutely everybody who matters,” Ms Hill adds.

“And he only gets that (if) he has the approval of people like President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia, the royal families of here, there and everywhere. For Trump, that’s what really matters, that’s the coin of the realm for him.”