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Greenland: How far will Trump really go? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Kristanamie.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, January twenty one, twenty twenty six. Anti Israel
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  Speaker 1: author Randa Abdelphatar has scrubbed her social media profiles of
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  Speaker 1: provocative posts. That includes a profile picture showing a Palestinian paraglider,
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  Speaker 1: which she says she only posted because she wasn't aware
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  Speaker 1: how many people had been killed by HERMAS militants on
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  Speaker 1: October seven, twenty twenty three, but an investigation by The
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  Speaker 1: Australian shows Abdelphatar used the profile picture for at least
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  Speaker 1: five months after the attack where Harmas militants paraglided over
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  Speaker 1: the border into southern Israel and slaughtered and kidnapped more
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  Speaker 1: than twelve hundred Jews. That story is live right now
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au. Donald Trump has
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  Speaker 1: doubled down on his plan to acquire Greenland by any
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  Speaker 1: means necessary. The President claims the United States needs to
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  Speaker 1: buy or take the Danish territory to stop China or
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  Speaker 1: Russia from moving in, but has the deal maker in
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  Speaker 1: chief backed a loser. Today, Washington correspondent Joe Kelly joins
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  Speaker 1: me to crunch the numbers. Donald Trump wants Greenland.
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  Speaker 2: President Trump not backing down from his push to take
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  Speaker 2: over Greenland.
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  Speaker 1: Tensions arising as European allies joined together to blast President Trump.
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump denouncing Britain and calling Keirstom's plant great stupidity.
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  Speaker 1: He really really wants Greenland.
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  Speaker 2: I would like to make a deal, you know, the
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  Speaker 2: easy way. But if we don't do it the easier way,
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  Speaker 2: we're going to do it the hard way.
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  Speaker 1: The US president says, America needs to acquire the Danish
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  Speaker 1: territory for national security purposes.
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  Speaker 2: And we'll have to defend Greenland if we don't do it,
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  Speaker 2: or Russia will.
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  Speaker 1: And he'll do anything to get it.
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  Speaker 2: President Donald Trump using the power of tariffs to try
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  Speaker 2: and get his way Greenland with military force on the table.
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  Speaker 2: This is really an extraordinary situation that we're in right now.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is The Australian's Washington correspondent.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone reasonably twelve months ago would have
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  Speaker 2: thought that we'd be right here. And essentially Europe now
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  Speaker 2: not only has to contend with Russia, but really the
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  Speaker 2: key issue it has to contend with right now is
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  Speaker 2: economic coercion from an ally and really the central plank
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  Speaker 2: of the NATO alliance in the form of the United States.
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  Speaker 2: So we're really in new territory here. And I would
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  Speaker 2: argue there are very compelling reasons to think that the
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  Speaker 2: United States under Donald Trump is really unpicking the foundations
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  Speaker 2: of that post World War two international order.
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  Speaker 1: So is this actually a good deal?
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  Speaker 2: The short answer is no, Chris, and I think it's
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  Speaker 2: a bad deal. In fact, I don't think it makes
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  Speaker 2: very much sense at all, whether you're talking about strategically
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  Speaker 2: or economically. I just think it's a bad deal. So
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  Speaker 2: the first thing is it's expensive. There's a variety of
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  Speaker 2: different estimates. On the high side, there are estimates over
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  Speaker 2: a trillion dollars. On the low side, people are talking
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  Speaker 2: about two hundred and fifty billion dollars, but some of
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  Speaker 2: the estimates in the middle are about six hundred billion,
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  Speaker 2: seven hundred billion, seven hundred and fifty billion. That's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of money that's going to increase the debt. It's
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  Speaker 2: going to increase annual deficits, it's going to increase interest
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  Speaker 2: payments for the US, and it's really going to put
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  Speaker 2: a squeeze on average every day Americans, and I don't
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  Speaker 2: think they get very much in return. They don't get
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  Speaker 2: very much in return because strategically, the United States doesn't
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  Speaker 2: need to own Greenland. Strategically, there's a defense agreement signed
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  Speaker 2: back in nineteen fifty one. They can have bases there,
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  Speaker 2: it would just require them to cooperate. So I think
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  Speaker 2: it's a bad deal in economic terms, and worst of all,
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  Speaker 2: it invites retaliation from Europe, and it destroys the Transatlantic partnership,
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  Speaker 2: which has been really so crucial in preserving stability in
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  Speaker 2: Europe for so long. I think we're really on the
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  Speaker 2: precipice of something big, something unpredictable, and we're only one
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  Speaker 2: year in to Trump's four year term.
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  Speaker 1: Ambassadors from twenty seven European Union member nations met in
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  Speaker 1: Brussels this week thrash out their response to Trump's tariff
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  Speaker 1: threats and the more concerning possibility he'll deploy the US
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  Speaker 1: military to the Danish territory. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Luka
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  Speaker 1: Rasmussen was clear, but yours are meeted crystal clear that
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  Speaker 1: this is a red line, while British PM Kirstarmer said
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  Speaker 1: Trump's tariff threats are a betrayal. The use of tariffs
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  Speaker 1: against allies is completely wrong. A further face to face
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  Speaker 1: meeting of European leaders has been slated for Thursday.
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  Speaker 2: So this is going to be a really tricky decision
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  Speaker 2: how Europe responds. Europe is big, There's a whole range
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  Speaker 2: of different countries and they're not going to agree. Some
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  Speaker 2: are going to be more inclined to try and keep
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  Speaker 2: the US on side, Some are going to be more
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  Speaker 2: inclined to try and do something. There are going to
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  Speaker 2: be different positions, but in terms of what options are
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  Speaker 2: available to them at the moment, the EU has not
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  Speaker 2: yet ratified the trade deal that had struck with Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 2: so they can pull that ratification. That means the US
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  Speaker 2: doesn't get the lower tariffs that it was hoping. The
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  Speaker 2: other thing is they can put on their own retaliatory
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  Speaker 2: tariffs on over one hundred billion dollars worth of US goods.
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  Speaker 2: But one of the options that French President Emmanuel Macron
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  Speaker 2: has floated is the idea of this anti coercion instrument,
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  Speaker 2: and this is referred to as the trade bazooka, and
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  Speaker 2: effectively that gives the EU a range of different options.
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  Speaker 2: More forceful export controls to put tariffs on services, restrict
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  Speaker 2: intellectual property rights, and a suite of other measures. Now,
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  Speaker 2: going one step beyond that, there is the possibility, very
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  Speaker 2: unlikely this would be a nuclear option if Europe decided
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  Speaker 2: to do it in offloading US treasuries. Now that won't
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  Speaker 2: happen because that inflicts harm on Europe, but it holds
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  Speaker 2: an all for a lot of US treasuries. The US
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  Speaker 2: is vulnerable in that regard. The fact that we're discussing
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  Speaker 2: some of these options, I think, however, is extraordinary and
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  Speaker 2: it shows the strain, the pressure that's been put on
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  Speaker 2: this transatlantic partnership, and really the fact that we're now
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  Speaker 2: in uncharted territory.
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  Speaker 1: So this isn't, as you said, a great deal economically,
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  Speaker 1: it's not strategically necessary. So what is actually driving Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump in this issue? As much as you can try
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  Speaker 1: to glean what's driving Donald Trump at any given time.
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  Speaker 2: I think Donald Trump has a throwback view of the
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  Speaker 2: world that the post World War two order really has
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  Speaker 2: not worked to the advantage of America. That America has
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  Speaker 2: suffered has been ripped off as a result of this system.
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  Speaker 2: It's carried burdens on behalf of other countries, allies and partners,
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  Speaker 2: and it shouldn't have to do that. He doesn't think
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  Speaker 2: it's benefited the United States. He's got really a nineteenth
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  Speaker 2: century view of the world. We're going back here to
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  Speaker 2: the Monroe doctrine, the idea that the United States should
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  Speaker 2: really worry about its piece of the globe and the
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  Speaker 2: other big powers can worry about their piece of the globe.
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  Speaker 2: So if you look at what he's doing through that lens,
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  Speaker 2: things seem to make more sense. The adventurism in Venezuela,
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  Speaker 2: the capture of Maduro, really the exercise in resource colonialism
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  Speaker 2: in Venezuela, trying to get indefinite control over its oil sector,
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  Speaker 2: encouraging the big US oil companies to go in. And
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  Speaker 2: now this look towards Greenland. I think Trump would like
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  Speaker 2: to have a legacy that he expanded the geographical territory
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  Speaker 2: of the United States. So he'd be looking at things
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  Speaker 2: like the Louisiana purchase back in eighteen o three, which
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  Speaker 2: is an enormous purchase of land on the western side
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  Speaker 2: of the Mississippi, and he'd be looking to carve out
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  Speaker 2: a legacy on that scale. And this is how he
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  Speaker 2: sees it being able to be realized.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, what American voters think about Donald Trump's ambitions
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  Speaker 1: in Europe. You mentioned earlier that everyday Americans don't get
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  Speaker 1: a huge amount of anything out of a deal like
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  Speaker 1: this if it does proceed. Donald Trump, of course, campaigned
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  Speaker 1: on a platform of bringing manufacturing back to America, making
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  Speaker 1: groceries cheaper, ultimately making life easier for Americans. Are voters
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  Speaker 1: behind this push to acquire Greenland and are they even
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  Speaker 1: aware of the possible implications for them if it does
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  Speaker 1: go ahead.
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  Speaker 2: I think Donald trump'sen risky political territory. He campaigned on
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  Speaker 2: the idea of ending these sorts of foreign interventions forever wars,
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  Speaker 2: and already his mega political constituency is fracturing. We've seen
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  Speaker 2: that over a range of issues from foreign affairs to politics,
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  Speaker 2: but we are now seeing a range of more aggressive
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  Speaker 2: foreign policy decisions being made by a president who's really
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  Speaker 2: under pressure over his domestic agenda. People are still concerned
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  Speaker 2: that the cost of living hasn't come down enough. That
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  Speaker 2: was one of the key things the president campaigned on
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  Speaker 2: and the lead up to his election in twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 2: and now we're seeing a focus on ven aswell. Removing
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  Speaker 2: dictators from power, possible strikes and interventions in Iran. He
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  Speaker 2: already bombed the nuclear enrichment sites last year and now
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  Speaker 2: these threats over Greenland. So I think he needs to
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  Speaker 2: be very careful that he doesn't further lose support among
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  Speaker 2: his Maga constituency, who, for the most part, were concerned
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  Speaker 2: about these sorts of foreign escapades.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is The Australian's Washington correspondent. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all the latest on Greenland right now at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot au