Editors at National Review Online target one of President Trump’s latest controversies.
The unnecessary crisis over Greenland has been made unnecessarily worse by President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on countries that were not “going along” with his plans for the island. Exports to the U.S. from eight NATO allies (with more to be added to the list?) were to be hit with an extra 10 percent tariff from February 1, rising to 25 percent on June 1 and staying at that level until, the president wrote, “such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” Needless to say, those who end up paying for these tariffs will, for the most part, be American.
We continue to believe that Donald Trump has been right to stress the strategic importance of Greenland. Floating the idea of something much more ambitious — outright purchase — rather than simply taking advantage of our existing favorable treaty arrangements governing the island was imaginative, Trumpian, and not unprecedented. However, there is a difference between floating an idea and forcing one through. We should only buy Greenland if the final decision of whether to accept our offer is made via referendum by the Greenlanders themselves. The antics of the last few months have done a great deal to ensure this will not happen any time soon, let alone within Trump’s tariff timetable.
One alternative, an American takeover of Greenland by force, not only would be antithetical to the U.S. view of intentional legitimacy going back more than 100 years but would have catastrophic consequences. It is an idea that should be rejected out of hand. Annexation at gunpoint would risk shattering NATO entirely or leaving it a shadow of its former self. It would destroy the trust in the U.S. that underpins both the alliance and the credibility of American deterrence. To gain an island that we already have considerable sway over at the cost of “losing” Europe looks like a bad trade, militarily, economically, and geopolitically.
