Trump joins history’s long line of suitors coveting Greenland – POLITICO

[ad_1]

“If you had told me 10 years ago that I’d be interviewing about Greenland, I would not have put that high up on my list of possible topics the media would be interested in,” says historian John C. Mitcham of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. “But it is also really fascinating, somewhat troubling too, that we’re hearing the echoes of the past with Victorian language about sovereignty and security.”

He adds: “You and I are talking about this in context of Greenland, Canada, and Trump, but the same can be applied to some of the rhetoric surrounding Russian annexation in Ukraine, of Chinese maritime ambitions in the Pacific. It really is quite… What’s the phrase? New wine in old bottles.”

Critics may deride the president-elect for his expansionist ambition to annex Greenland, but geopolitical considerations and military logic have prompted U.S. diplomats before to offer to buy the island.

Critics may deride the president-elect for his expansionist ambition to annex Greenland, but geopolitical considerations and military logic have prompted U.S. diplomats before to offer to buy the island. | Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

The first time was in 1867 when the then powerful secretary of state William H. Seward, fresh off buying Alaska from Russia, floated the idea. It was “worthy of serious consideration,” he said.

An ardent expansionist, Seward, who also coveted Canada, commissioned a favorable study, much as Trump might do to lure investors to back yet another casino hotel. “The final document — which Seward had printed and distributed to lawmakers— was hardly objective in its findings,” wrote historian Jeff Ludwig, director of education at the Seward House Museum in Auburn, in a 2019 article.

Certainly, ‘A Report on the Resources of Iceland and Greenland’ didn’t under-sell the potential of Greenland, and its author, Benjamin Peirce, a surveyor, waxed enthusiastically about the island’s abundant wildlife, game and fisheries, its great mineral wealth, including coal, and the fact that it was “largely more than half the size of all Europe.”

[ad_1]

Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6781e35442aa4d41ac1913306c601bc7&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.eu%2Farticle%2Fdonald-trump-greenland-american-history%2F&c=4637128747889895141&mkt=en-us Author : Publish date : 2025-01-10 14:01:00 Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source .