Trump Sees Green in Greenland

This is a diamond in the rough for this administration — a not bad forward-thinking idea.

Photo by Tina Rolf on Unsplash

In early August, when President Donald Trump announced his interest in purchasing Greenland, we were once again dumbfounded. The purchase of a tiny Arctic country with a population of 56,000 left many laughing uproariously, scratching their heads in confusion, blindly supporting the president or just plain angry. This was true regardless of political ideology. The biggest question of all was why Greenland?

But since political divisiveness is the norm now, there was no room to allow any objective discourse to take place. In the case of Greenland, it was warranted.

The country has long been of interest to the United States. When Secretary of State William Seward was negotiating the purchase of Alaska with Russia, in 1867, he was also exploring the purchase of Greenland. This also isn’t the first time a president of the United States has tried to purchase Greenland. President Truman offered up $100 million for it in 1946.

Last year, Republican Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas brought up the purchase of Greenland with the Danish ambassador. And in May of this year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would re-establish a diplomatic presence in…