Trump Has a Bonkers New Plan to Win Over Greenland Residents |
The White House is floating a novel scheme in its quest to annex Greenland: outright bribery.
U.S. officials are reportedly mulling over the possibility of paying Greenlanders up to $100,000 each in order to acquire the Arctic outpost, according to four insiders that spoke with Reuters Thursday. White House aides were involved in the discussions, which proposed individual payments between $10,000 to $100,000 per islander.
Roughly 57,000 people reside in Greenland, a self-governing territory within the kingdom of Denmark. Local leaders have repeatedly stated their disinterest in joining the 50 states, going so far as completely reshuffling their Parliament in March to prioritize opposing the U.S. after a landslide election win for the island’s pro-independence movement.
If Greenlanders somehow changed their mind after months of intimidation and militaristic threats by the White House, then the payment plan could cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $5.7 billion.
What exactly the White House stands to gain from controlling Greenland isn’t clear, particularly because myriad existing treaties already give the U.S. unfettered access to Greenland as a military base.
Nonetheless, Donald Trump has been fixated on the idea since at least 2019, when he told reporters that the arrangement could be handled as a “large real estate deal.”
In recent weeks, the president’s threats have escalated in fervor and frequency. In an interview with The Atlantic published Sunday—just a day after he ordered U.S. forces to bomb Venezuela, raid Caracas, and abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro—Trump said: “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense.”
Even White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt couldn’t muster a logical explanation for the president’s Greenland obsession during a press conference Wednesday, vaguely suggesting that the acquisition would be beneficial for national security purposes, citing China and Russia. She did not provide any specific details as to how the U.S. would be able to make better use of the island beyond its current treaty arrangement.
Minneapolis Public Schools have canceled all classes for the rest of the week after a horrifying Border Patrol raid at a local high school, following a fatal ICE shooting of an unarmed woman.
Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed, tackled, and handcuffed people on the grounds of Minneapolis’s Roosevelt High School on Wednesday—just hours after ICE officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good.
“The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down,” a school official told MPR News. “They don’t care. They’re just animals … I’ve never seen people behave like this.”
MPR News reports that even high schoolers were caught in the crossfire of the ICE raid, although most gathered in the library for safety.
🚨🇺🇸BREAKING — ICE Stormed A Minneapolis School Today and Shot Tear Gas at Students. pic.twitter.com/kfe31tTabE
Roosevelt Principal Christian Ledesma told parents that he “instituted a lockout due to law enforcement presence outside of our school involving a vehicle that stopped near our building” after dismissal, and that teachers and students “witnessed law enforcement engage with people at Roosevelt.”
“I think school property should be off-limits. I think our kids need to feel safe at school,” said Kate Winkel, who lives near the school and witnessed Border Patrol snatch a person into their vehicle. “The federal government doesn’t need to attack schools.”
This comes as federal agents escalate their aggression against Minnesotans protesting Good’s death.
At least one airline has decided to stop flying for ICE.
Avelo Airlines, the primary commercial air fleet that has carried out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, canceled its contract with the federal government on Tuesday. In an email to employees, CEO Andrew Levy said that Avelo’s arrangement with the government had only offered “short-term benefits” at a cost to the company’s long-term reputation.
“We moved a portion of our fleet into a government program which promised more financial stability but placed us in the center of a political controversy,” Levy wrote in the email, obtained by CNBC. “The program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”
Protests took place across the country at Avelo’s commercial bases when the company signed on to work with ICE back in May.
In an attempt to salvage its business, Avelo