President Trump isn’t ushering in a golden age but rather an age of gold. The precious metal has hit an all-time high of $4,650 (£3,466) an ounce following his latest threats to levy tariffs against Europe over Greenland. By contrast, the geopolitical ructions over Greenland mean that the once-proud dollar has continued to tumble against foreign currencies, jeopardising its status as the world’s reserve currency.
A number of Congressional Republicans, including Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, are voicing their doubts about the wisdom of Trump’s eagerness to cosplay Russian president Vladimir Putin seizing Crimea. Kennedy referred to the notion of invading Greenland as ‘weapons-grade stupid’. The latest conservative figure to join the chorus of doubters is Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence.
On Sunday, Pence conceded that it was a neat idea for America to own the Danish territory but uttered a Jeeves-like cough of disapproval about Trump’s brusque methods:
I have concerns about using what I think is a questionable constitutional authority, imposing unilateral tariffs on Nato allies to achieve this objective, as much as I had concerns about the threat of a military invasion, which apparently is no longer being talked about.
Trump’s impulsivity abroad is damaging his standing at home
Just how aligned are the Nato allies with America? European Council president Antonio Costa has called a special meeting to discuss retaliation against Trump’s tariffs. What Trump will make of a former prime minister of Portugal plotting to upend his plans is not difficult to imagine. Perhaps he will take more seriously French president Emmanuel Macron’s lobbying to aim the so-called European ‘trade bazooka’ against Washington. Firing it would cripple some $2 trillion (£1.5 trillion) in annual trade between America and Europe, not to mention spell an end to the entity known as Nato.
Germany, on the other hand, has hastily withdrawn the paltry 15 troops that it sent on a putative reconnaissance mission to Greenland a few days ago. It may not be as eager as France to confront Trump. For now, the European Union is considering imposing $108 billion (£80 billion) in retaliatory tariffs.
Trump has further raised eyebrows with a letter to Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Store stating, among other things, that the failure of the Nobel committee to award him the peace prize relieves him of the obligation ‘to think purely of peace’. Trump’s missive seemed so fantastic that doubts circulated about its authenticity until Store confirmed that he had indeed received it and sought to remind Trump, for the umpteenth time, that he does not dispose of the Nobel awards. At the same time, Trump apparently is intent on conducting a signing ceremony at Davos for his new ‘Board of Peace’, complete with a $1 billion (£745 billion) joining fee. Trump has invited none other than Russian president Vladimir Putin to join it, but the entire project is in a state of disarray as Israel and other countries baulk at the terms.
For Trump, who has long viewed the Europeans as mendacious mendicants, the Greenland issue might prove providential. Seizing the self-governing island would not only allow him to expand America’s landmass by some 860,000 square miles but would also provide a nifty pretext for splitting up Nato itself. Writing in the New York Times, former German ambassador to the US Wolfgang Ischinger warned:
If allies begin to doubt that their sovereignty will be respected by their partners, why should adversaries believe that the alliance would defend our sovereignty against external threats? What is at stake here is not Greenland itself, but the future of the transatlantic relationship.
That prospect could prove to be an incentive rather than a deterrent to Trump. Indeed, given the censorious tone of his National Security Strategy document about the cultural flaccidity of Europe, the President might well join up with Putin, handing over Ukraine and performing a kind of pincer movement on the rest of Europe.
Whether such moves would boost Trump’s popularity is another matter. A spate of recent opinion polls suggest that his impulsivity abroad is damaging his standing at home. Voters are complaining that he isn’t focusing on the issue that propelled him to a second term, namely, the economy. A CBS News poll from the weekend indicated that 74 percent of voters complain that their wages are not keeping up with costs. A Wall Street Journal poll found that nearly 6 in 10 voters believe that the economy is ‘not so good’ or in ‘poor’ shape.
Occupying Greenland might provide Trump with a quick sugar high, much as kidnapping Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro did. But most Americans have already put the Venezuelan expedition in the rearview mirror. It seems safe to say that a fresh, excellent adventure to plunder Greenland isn’t likely to supply Trump with much political sustenance. He would do well to remember that all that glitters isn’t gold.
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