Donald Trump Actually Canceled a Meeting with the Danish PM Because She Wouldn’t Sell Him Greenland

By Shane Ryan  |  August 21, 2019 | 12:36pm
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Politics Features Donald Trump
Donald Trump Actually Canceled a Meeting with the Danish PM Because She Wouldn’t Sell Him Greenland

In our current light-speed media ecosystem, the vertiginous rapidity of which is somewhat dictated by our president’s large fingers mashing out wild Twitter dispatches, this is practically old news…but it’s so stunning that I want to state it for the record, in case aliens obliterate us one day but somehow manage to get Internet access and are curious about exactly how stupid things got at the end. Read these tweets from Tuesday:

To answer your first question, yes, Trump really wants to buy Greenland.

Speaking to reporters, the president confirmed reports that first appeared on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal that he had asked administration officials to look into the possibility of purchasing the self-governing Danish territory.

“It’s just something we’ve talked about,” he said. “Denmark essentially owns it. We’re very good allies with Denmark. We’ve protected Denmark like we protect large portions of the world, so the concept came up.”

Gotta love that implicit threat! “We protect you, so you have to sell us your land.”

The Danes responded as normal people would—Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, “Greenland is not for sale.”

Pretty simple!

“I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously,” she added, which was sure to infuriate a guy like Trump who hates to be undermined by anyone, but particularly by a woman. And so, he fired off the tweets you see above, “punishing” the Danish prime minister (if you consider Trump canceling a visit a true punishment). He was originally invited by Queen Margrethe II, and her people confirmed that the cancellation was “definitely a surprise.”

Even the conservatives in Denmark are now mad:

This is frankly unbelievable stuff, even from a bumbling diplomat like Trump. The concept of buying Greenland is one thing, and actually letting the notion go public is another, but canceling a visit because the Danes won’t entertain your offer? That’s actually insane, and petty, and just plain weird on a level we haven’t seen before. Like many things Trump has done, it’s simultaneously kind of funny and very horrifying. And it leaves us with the same conclusion we’ve been arriving at for the last three years: We desperately need a new president.

 
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