Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "The Real Reason Trump is Threatening to Seize Greenland" video.

  1. See Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. Show me a Russian or Chinese equivalent.
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  2. The empires will divide it or one will try to take it. If Russia achieves its vision of reaching the European Atlantic Coast, Denmark's jurisdiction over Greenland will be moot. Ergo, Trump is essentially saying "we can do this the easy way or the hard way." I didn't vote for the guy, and I don't think his tactics are the best, but he is not wrong to pay attention to Greenland.
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  3. People's work to build a home, a vocation, and a family should be respected. But the idea that Greenlanders should be the only stewards of that vast land is rather grandiose. The mining interests that eventually show up are only there to make friends as much as they need to, and when buffered by icy water and vast stretches of ice covered land, they don't need friends much. Mining towns will have their own sense of autonomy and ethnocentrism, whatever nation they come from. See the last 500 years of the development of North America.
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  4. Imagine somebody shows up at your local government meeting and says they want to start a mine 100kM from town in a place where no one from town has been for years much less built a summer cabin there. They offer the town something like the Alaskan Permanent Fund which will send each town resident a check every year. Why would people who get checks from Denmark turn down more checks?
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  5. That logic says Russia is bad.
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  6. What nation doesn't have some corruption?
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  7. The population of Greenland, and even of Denmark, does not have the capacity to exercise jurisdiction over the entire island in the emerging future. Their towns and the economic zones of activity those towns have are the effective jurisdiction. By themselves, Greenland would have little to no capacity to repel the establishment of Russian and Chinese mining towns in Greenland, which would have their own interest in being independent from Danish and/or Greenland's jurisdiction. Greenland's security against this kind of development has been its tie to Denmark and thus to NATO and the United States. From this perspective, instead of any independence movement in Greenland seeming to be absurd, it looks more likely to be a program of Russian or even BRICS influence. Given the small population, and its familiarity with foreign subsidies, it would seem quite easy to buy politicians and votes. It's quite possible, without NATO, for Greenland's small towns to be left to themselves while capable nations divide the rest of the island. Trump's interest in the island, if for no other reason, is to signal to all competitors that the United States is on the island and at its table. While the islanders deserve to have their homes and commerce and reasonable prospects for autonomous development respected, the islanders claim to all its land is a bit of geographic hubris.
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  8.  @pills-  Good point.
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  9.  @justanotherdude2165  Business majors took over American health care. Ask the doctors.
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  10. Mining towns would need to be pretty autonomous themselves. If they have aircraft, are they better off flying healthcare emergencies to Iceland or to some town in Greenland? Greenlanders control their towns and local economic resources. They will have little luck repelling future development. They will not have the same capacity to sabotage mining that the Middle Eastern nations have. Russia would create some Potemkin facade and otherwise subjugate the population if not reduce them more than the Danes have. I did not vote for Trump, and I think he is mishandling this relationship, but he is not wrong to pay attention to it.
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