According to the Saga of Eirik the Red , from the year 1200, the Norse explorer who established homesteads on the island, Eirik, called the place Greenland, "Because,” he said, “men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name.”

For Donald the Orange of Florida the attraction of Greenland is not its good name, but obsession with land mass, strategic minerals, and Nobel prizes. Donald the Orange has threatened to annex Greenland from Denmark by force, if need be, “Whether they like it or not.” Raising the specter of the Norse god Loki the Trickster, he continued, “I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”

President Donald Trump doesn’t know that Greenland, the world’s largest island at over 2 million square kilometers, is covered almost entirely by a massive ice sheet up to 3 kilometers thick. Its magnificent, unique fjords include Ilulissat, a UNESCO World Heritage site. He cares less that Greenland, territory of Denmark, has home rule by Inuit, of whom roughly 56,000 inhabit the land. And he has no concern that its ice sheet has been shrinking for 29 years. He wants mineral wealth.

Donald the Orange’s involvement in disputes in Africa, Ukraine, Venezuela, and in his efforts to annex Greenland, indicate his belief that control of minerals and fossil fuels are critical to the US superiority in world affairs. Conquest of Greenland will enable the US to escape reliance on China which controls, mines, or processes many of the worlds strategic miners. Greenland has been “underexplored and is geologically very favorable," according to an economic geologist at Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

The Kalaallit and Danes do not need Trumps’s threats or his contaminated garbage.

A 2023 European Commission survey showed that 25 of the 34 minerals classified as "critical raw materials" are found in Greenland. They include rare earth elements used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, advanced electronics, and military equipment. There is great potential to develop zinc, copper, and nickel deposits, although oil and natural gas extraction are banned for environmental reasons. But mining projects would encounter bureaucratic hurdles as well as opposition from Indigenous communities. Hence annexation is Donald the Orange’s preferred path.

The Vikings had treaties to expand trade networks and influence across the Arctic. Donald the Orange rejects trade for tariffs and relies on bloviating threats that make him the consummate dealmaker. Trump first demanded Greenland as a gift; next floated the idea of purchasing it as "an absolute necessity”; and now is committed to military force to plunder its fish, gold, graphite, and zinc from Inuit people. Donald the Orange ultimately sees Greenland as an outpost of his bold leadership to keep the Russian and Chinese pillagers at bay.

Trump ignores universal European opposition to his plans. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that any attack by the US would destroy NATO. European NATO leaders issued a joint statement that "Greenland belongs to its people.” They pointed out that “the United States is an essential partner in this endeavor, as a NATO ally and through the defense agreement between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States of 1951.”

But Donald the Orange rejects contemporary diplomatic maneuvers for a Viking, 19th-century view of international........

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