Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

Incredible quotes here, basically "give us Greenland or it will be war":

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defends Trump's tariff plan, telling NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday that Trump is making the "strategic" geopolitical decision to use the US's "economic might" to "avoid a hot war".

"The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency," Bessent says.

Bessent also says that Trump is trying to "avoid a conflict" by annexing Greenland.

"What we know is that Greenland can only be defended if it is part of the US, and it will not need to be defended if it is part of the US," he adds.

"I believe that the Europeans will understand that this is best for Greenland, best for Europe and best for the United States," he says

Incredible excepting that it's coming from a top shelf member of Trump's crew and the country is turning into a living hell under Trump's guiding hands. I'll wait for a quote from the U.S's top diplomat Marco Rubio to see what he thinks about Trump's foreign policy statements.

I agree on the concentration-of-power problem. And while I’m not a fan of Trump’s behaviour, I do think it forces Europe to grow up fast - we can’t outsource our security forever, so we’ll have to step up properly.

Ireland can’t afford to be a passenger. If we don’t help shape Europe’s decisions, we will end up living with decisions made for us. We and the other smaller nations need to be at the table shaping Europes military policies, we cannot afford to let the Germans, the UK and the French take full control. That would be a huge mistake.

That was a striking thing about Cuba when I visited - nothing named after Castro during his lifetime. Even he thought that was too much.

Trump and his enablers have placed 2 battalions of the 11th Airborne Division on standby for deployment to Minnesota.
Of note, the 11th is one of only 2 US cold weather specialist units.
If they are on the streets of Minneapolis?
They can't be dropped into Greenland.

The administration is deliberately stoking outrage in blue cities and states in the hope that a violent reaction will allow them scope to invoke the insurrection act.
Minnesota is standing up and standing strong for its people and for "real" Americans.

The absolute dangers of the US' style of Executive power has been laid bare.
The lack of any effective checks and balances, despite our hearing about them for years?
Should surprise no-one.
A system that relies upon good people, doing the right thing and ensuring the system "works"?
Is a system that is only as good as the people.

The notion of 3 co-equal branches of Government?
Has hopefully been shown up for the utter fantasy it always has been.
The US has become a "papers please, police state" it has devolved to that in less than a year.

The lack of any effective means of Congressional censure or even opposition.
Is leaving oversight in the hands of the courts.
Courts that the administration is happy to demean and ignore.

Whilst ramping up the potential for violence at home?
Trump is also burning bridges with allies internationally.

This is all deliberate and calibrated. It's project2025 white nationalism on steroids.

We will still have some posters argue the opposite.

It was crazy to read during Brexit. Here we are, 10 years or so later, and the simple function of the single market still eludes people.

And this is after Gov Walz activated and mobilized the Minnesota Nat Gd having it on standby for use to support the police, as I understand it, a step up from the readying order he issued to the Gd on the 7th Jan. The Airborne battalions are based in Alaska, according to an earlier F/B post.

I think an American based poster saying Americans think this standoff and threats are a non issue shows how deluded Americans are. This is not reassuring at all to us on the other side of the Atlantic. Its concerning that Americans may be sleep walking into the breakup of Nato in such a relaxed manner.

Good point, currently Europe could not defend itself from a Russian attack.. If either China or Russia did decide they wanted to annex Greenland there's nothing Europe could do militarily..

The poster said there's nothing Europe could do.

Not what they might or would do.

Europe could do quite a lot militarily to a number of adversaries if it wished to.

As a debater here, do you trust the words from the Trump Admin team on where the Airborne battalions based in Alaska may be deployed to; rumoured to be Minnesota to support the federal personnel there or whether the battalions [specified as being winter warfare trained] might be used on a land mass like Greenland [as Trump seems to have set his heart on annexing that island]?

It's fair to say that Trump likes issuing statements and saying things which he knows will agitate people. He might end up with stampedes here, not just in Europe but in Wall Street.

Just that simple is it? How naive…

Ukraine is the only thing stopping Putin from starting a conflict into Western Europe and there's little we could do to stop them from wreaking havoc..

Nonsense. Russia's military capability in Ukraine has been fairly laughable considering the size of their army. All they seem to have is unlimited personnel, which is sad in itself.