He Blinked

[Editorial]

Trump blinked. After making such a great deal about “getting” Greenland, he ended up getting nothing. After all this noise, we finished with exactly what we already had—only now with more allies irritated along the way.

Under a 1951 defense agreement with Denmark, the United States has operated military installations in Greenland for decades, most notably what is now Pituffik Space Base.

Remember the “DEW Line”?

We already had a line of radar stretching across Greenland and Canada to detect Soviet missiles. Trump talked about another early-warning system, and everyone essentially said okay. Yet Trump still bragged, once again, about being the master of The Art of the Deal.

Then reality set in. Trump looked around and saw that Republican members of Congress did not want an invasion. He saw that U.S. allies didn’t want it either. He read the handwriting on the wall and backed off. But the damage was already done. The ill will stirred up among NATO nations hurt the United States immensely.

And then—then—came the Nobel Prize snub. How petty. Trump’s fixation on not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize, and his decision to drag Norway into the Greenland dispute because of it, caused further damage to America’s prestige. Norway does not even award the prize, yet the grievance was aired publicly, for all the world to see.

In the end, America retained its strategic assets. But it paid for the spectacle with strained alliances, bruised credibility, and zero tangible benefit.

[/Editorial]