In the first major crisis in US-UK relations since the Labour government came to power in 2024, US President Donald Trump, having already threatened to quit NATO if members do not support him on Greenland, today announced a 10 per cent tariff on all goods sent to the US by Britain and its European allies from Feb 1. The levy will increase to 25 per cent on June 1, unless Britain and seven other major European economic powers agree to let The USA take control of Denmark's semi auonomous territory, Greenland.)
As well as UK and Denmark the levy will aply to Germany, France, Norway, Finland, Netherlands and Sweden.
Trumps announcement triggered a round of outraged pearl clutching from the political maiden aunts who lead the affected nations. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would be “pursuing this directly with the US administration” although what effect this personality - deficient nonentity thinks he can have is a mystery.
French President Emmanuel Macron was more forceful (well at least his wife has balls even if he doesn't,) saying of the tariffs of the tariffs: “No intimidation nor threat will influence us.” He probably means the cheese eating surrender monkeys will do what they uually do.
Trump’s move will force Sir Keir and other leaders to either suffer the economic consequences of an international trade war or agree to cede land belonging to a Nato ally, threatening the future of the security alliance. If they had a grain of cmmon sense beteen them instead of blethering about international law they would recognise that with Europe having recently shown itself to be totally ineffectual militarily and politically and Greenland, with its wealth of mineral resources being vulnerable to pressure from hostile powers, they should be talking abot a deal with the USA on the basis of security guaratees for mineral rights.
Economists have warned that the new tariffs could push Britain into recession if they were kept in place long-term and with most European nations in de facto recession even though creative accounting is masking the dire state of their economies they are not in any position to stand on their principles.
Mr Trump said: “This tariff will be due and payable until such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland.”
This is just bluster of course, Trump is merely laying out his opening gambit in what would necessarily be long and complex negotiations.The US president has for the past few months been ramping up his threats to seize the Arctic island either through force or a deal, saying Europe has insufficiently defended the strategic territory that he claims is coveted by China and Russia.
A big puzzle in the equation is why Denmark is so determined to preserve the status quo around Greenland. The Danes, like other Scandinavians, are a politically correct bunch and may think they are preserving the rights of Greenland's Inuit population to continue their traditional way of life unmolested. However the Inuit have for years been pressing for full independence so there is evidently not much graitude for Denmark's political and financial support over the centuries.
The Danes are not stupid (though the Inuit may be, unless they they think they may get a better deal from Russia or China that Europe and the USA. If that is the case then they are not just stupid, they're idiots.
Something that none of the media coverage of Trump’s desire to control Greenland seems to mention is that Greenland has large deposits of rare earth minerals that so far it’s decided not to mine for “environmental” reasons. Although a lot of rare earths are used in “renewable” energy generation such as wind turbines which Trump isn’t interested in they’re also used in a lot of computers/electronics including a lot of military systems. China currently controls 85% of the world’s supply of rare earths and in terms of national security this is a major problem for the US.
We Boggart Bloggers, having discussed it over a couple of pints in The Albion earlier, suspect that Trump’s main reason for wanting to control Greenland is to ensure the US has sufficient amounts of essential raw materials.
We are not soothsayers or mind readers but beteen us have vast experience and based on knowledge of past events feel there may well be secret talks going on to arrange a deal whereby Greenland permits mining and in return for US security guarantees American investors and commodity traders can buy the output at preferential rates.
Talk of military action or buying Greenland may well just be a tough opening position in negotiations, as we have suggested bove, to try and force a deal whereby Greenland remains part of Denmark and the US gets rare earths and oil exploration rights..
What seems strange in Smarmer's response is he was so eager to giveaway our strategically important Indian Ocean territory (the Chagos Islands,) to a client state of communist China and not only that, to PAY Mauritius for taking it off our hands, many billions of pounds we cannot afford, yet our virtue signalling PM is absolutely adamant that Denmark must not sell Greenland and sends a powerful military fore of ONE squaddie to Greenland as our contribution to defending the island. Perhaps Kommie Keir has been told by his Chinese masters that in addition to approving plans for their spy hub super embassy in London he must to do all he can to deliver the world's biggest island into their hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment