Trump’s joke Greenland deal offers hope for US-EU diplomacy

The Greenland deal is a sad joke that Donald Trump can claim as a win at the mid-term elections, but it indicates there are still some serious people left in Washington. The US president declared it on social media on Friday (19 September) as a “FOREVER” and “Infinite Life Agreement”, which gave him “control over [Greenland’s] security, and all other needs … a dream come true”. He pledged to start “developing a large [US] military presence” in “many” parts of the island. And he is to solemnly ink the treaty at a ceremony with the Danish and Greenlandic leaders in New York next week, when the world is there to watch due to the United Nations General Assembly. Trump’s approval rating is 35 percent and falling as he heads toward elections on 3 November, which could see his Republican Party lose its grip on US lawmaking to the opposition Democrats, so he needs some quick wins. And, clearly, any deal is better than him killing Nato by invading an ally, but that was such a psychopathic scenario that neither I nor the ex-Nato officials I interviewed this year could take it seriously. Not least because Trump waged his threats with penguin memes, AI-slop maps, and illiterate, late-night posts. The Greenland row is, of course, sad because it has done lasting harm to transatlantic trust, as part of Trump’s wider attacks on Europe and Nato. But it was still a joke because it was based on a fanciful threat and a fictional image of an existing US treaty. Trump had said Russian and Chinese navies were circling the island, when they weren't, and added, on Friday, that he had forced Greenland to give him a veto on Russian and Chinese military bases or business investments there, when there were zero prospects of either. An existing 1951 treaty with Greenland has no expiry date, already lets the US build new military bases there, on top of its existing ones, as well as to use its airspace and waters, which also meant Trump's Friday "dream" deal was not really a new deal at all. And on top of that, Friday's pact preserved Greenland's "sovereignty and territorial integrity", Denmark said on Saturday, so it was nothing like Trump's original annexation fantasy. The full text of the agreement is yet to be unveiled and, in fairness to America, some European experts speculated this weekend that it might contain some new nuggets, such as Greenland's guarantee that it wouldn't kick out US troops even if voted for full independence from Denmark in a future referendum. Signs of life in US diplomacy The pact was put together by mid-ranking diplomats from the US, Denmark, and Greenland, in a format created by Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen in Washington on 14 January, which kept meeting quietly behind the scenes over the past eight months, away from the Trump media circus. The EU and individual member states also lobbied Washington to see sense. And, for me, that indicated there were still grown ups in the State Department and White House administration who not only knew what was the right thing to do, despite Trump's MAGA-sation of US institutions, but who also knew how to sell it to the creepy man-baby in the Oval Office as a "dream come true" success. MAGA podcasters demonise this type of thing as the "deep state", but it's a legacy of sanity and decency in Washington and it gives me cautious optimism. In any case, it would be a deep-state mercifully more aligned in values with the ex-fishermen from Nuuk it met with and listened to than Trumpian lunacy. And maybe it could also stop his chaos in Iran with another pseudo-win (suggestions welcome in comments below)? On face value, neither he nor his MAGA base look terribly intelligent or well-informed, so perhaps the sane state could even Jedi mind-trick them into seeing a real win as a win, for which Trump could have the Nobel Peace Prize he so lusts after, as far as I care. "Pssst! Mr President, sir, your highness, imagine stopping a GENOCIDE!!! in Gaza. Pope Leo told the CIA he'd make you a saint," a US diplomat said. "Your majesty, we have a deal: "FOREVER" rotating golden statues of you in the EU27 capitals, in return for you putting your imperial knee firmly on Russia's throat, where it belongs", the diplomat said.