Landry going to Nuuk as Trump jacks up more wheels

So, Mr. Landry is going to Nuuk, as part of Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s larger foreign policy goals that risk driving purveyors of conventional wisdom and unimaginative analysts and journalists to the brink of madness.

Louisiana’s GOP governor was appointed as a special envoy to Greenland late last year, and he says he’s going to make a trip there in a couple of months to rap with Greenlanders about how their independence leading to closer association with the U.S. can make their lives better. In fact, there he’s been invited to the world’s largest dogsledding event (although if he pilots a sled, beware).

That must irk Danish authorities a bit, especially as they can’t stop Landry from visiting and spreading this gospel. With Greenland existing as an autonomous entity loosely associated with Denmark and as part of the 2009 revisions to that status, it gained the ability to admit nationals of other states without Danish oversight. In essence, Landry will argue that an association deal that Greenland and its roughly 57,000 residents can get with the U.S. will top that from what Denmark does and could provide.

Those revisions include a path for independence with which Denmark must negotiate in good faith. Indeed, a majority of Greenlanders want independence that doubles the proportion who want to stick to the status quo, and even if living standards would drop somewhat with that happening – which undoubtedly would not happen if the U.S. signaled it would match if not exceed current Danish aid (about a fifth of Greenland’s revenue) if Greenland became independent – it’s about 50/50 among those who expressed a preference.

But when this survey came out a year ago, almost the entirety of worldwide coverage focused on the question that said an overwhelming majority of Greenlanders didn’t want to become part of the U.S. Why not; they would have less independence than now. However, that’s not the issue, even if the Trump Administration floats the idea from time to time and refuses to categorically deny military force to do it.

There are two things about Trump’s foreign policy that the ossified foreign policy complexes, which include governments involved in it and the media that covers it and academicians of various institutions that study it, almost to a participant seem incapable of understanding which makes them utterly unable to render a coherent and valid viewpoint about it. First, Trump practices maximal strategic ambiguity, floating a dizzying amount of options to keep his allies and (especially) adversaries guessing about his intentions and potential actions, leaving him maximum latitude to act and all others maximally unbalanced in potential response.

Second, and most appropriately regarding the media and academy infused as they are with leftism, no president ever has come close to his ability to yank their chains. Trump delights in getting the left to obsess over his every word and deed, and most of all when they totally take the bait with something extreme (at least to them) he utters. Countless times he has gotten them to pour huge resources into taking seriously, spewing endless recounting and analysis of, and fretting to no end about something he said. If nothing else, it presents a huge distraction to them that diverts their attention from more basic and nuts-and-bolts activities on his part that end up pulling the rug out from under leftist shibboleths believed anchored into policy before these nattering nabobs can react.

All the Greenland verbal diarrhea issued from these sectors provides a perfect example. No, Trump isn’t seriously going to make Greenland a part of the U.S. and especially not by force; no, he’s not going to buy it because he knows Denmark won’t sell; no, he’s not flush with hubris about a updated Monroe Doctrine (remember, Greenland isn’t in Europe, but part of North America) but rather wants a parlay to succeeding with foreign policy goals that all other presidents have tried and failed to accomplish beginning in 1959, 1979, etc. (And how is it that almost all of U.S. and European media miss this yet Israeli TV gets it?)

In fact, why would he want to change the U.S. relationship with Greenland? Already, U.S. companies have tremendous access to the territory’s mineral deposits (just that it’s so terrifically difficult to extract these) and has essentially unlimited ability to deploy military forces there. How would that change materially if Greenland became independent and then entered into a U.S. association like that it has with Denmark, or even with a reduced attachment?

Trump’s endgame may not even require this. All this talk and Landry’s dispatch may be his way of telling Denmark and the European Union to make greater strides in security for Greenland and in exploitation of strategic minerals. Enticing Greenland may be a ploy to urging Denmark and the EU to get on the stick on these matters or else the U.S. will curry Greenlandic favor as a method of achieving ends that, quite actually, all parties involved desire.

Maybe Landry, who shares Trump’s policy preferences on a wide range of matters, will have a little snicker when he sees how his trip to come jacks up more wheels and down the road long afterwards derives satisfaction if Trump’s move succeeds.