US threats against Denmark/Greenland

Anne Applebaum has a useful, brief polemic on the literal looniness of Trump’s threats to seize Greenland by force from the Kingdom of Denmark. She quotes in full his brief letter to Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway, bizarrely citing the decision of the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone other than Donald Trump as justification for US military seizure of Greenland:

Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland. [my emphasis]

(1)
The British Channel 4 has this report on the current situation: (2)

Notes:

(1) Applebaum, Anne (2026): Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw. The Atlantic 01/19/2026. <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-letter-to-norway/685676/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK36YjEx6PWcaiwVCToEIk3KY&fbclid=IwY2xjawPcKgNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe6uPnupD96kWl70mM0emRg7X1MjUTGGNgShCogJ2z-CokIvs39H4H8dZCa6Q_aem_uFMzPyHDQIEXyy9lBJ_FvA> (Accessed: 2026-20-01).

(2) Greenland: Will Europe fight Trump or surrender. Channel 4 News YouTube channel 01/19/2026. <https://youtu.be/rYKKeRyWw3Y?si=R4mdGvDqetdBiXkN> (Accessed: 2026-20-01).