Europe cannot condemn colonialism à la carte |
On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – the annual Alpine gathering of the global elite – to declare that now is “not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism”.
This, of course, was a reference to the current ambitions of Macron’s counterpart in the United States, Donald Trump, who, in addition to recently kidnapping the president of Venezuela and repeatedly threatening to seize the Panama Canal, has made a great deal of noise about taking over the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland.
Trump himself took to the podium in Davos on Wednesday for a typically rambling speech, during which he alternately babbled about windmills, snidely complimented Macron on his “beautiful” reflective sunglasses, and declared that he would not “use force” in the acquisition of Greenland – which he also accidentally referred to as Iceland.
Indeed, Trump’s designs on the island have got Europe’s panties in a bunch, and the European Parliament has announced its unequivocal condemnation of “the statements made by the Trump administration regarding Greenland, which constitute a blatant challenge to international law, to the principles of the United Nations Charter and to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a NATO ally”.
Following Macron’s intervention........