More on the Danish dust-up

Greenland used to be a Danish colony but now belongs to the people of Greenland—the Danish government could not sell the island even if it wanted to. Trump likely did not know that Denmark is one of America’s most reliable allies. Danish troops, for example, fought alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and suffered 50 fatalities, and Danish forces were among the earliest to join the fight against the Islamic State.

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It is one thing to float a cockamamie idea that no one believes is serious or will go anywhere. “Let’s buy Greenland!” Yes, very funny. A good distraction from the economy, the failure to deal with white supremacy, White House staff problems, or whatever is the news of the day. It is quite another to use leverage and impose costs on Denmark in pursuit of that goal—and make no mistake, canceling a presidential visit is using leverage and imposing costs.

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This is the kind of thing the Russians and the Chinese do. It is territorial revisionism—the use of national power to acquire territory against the desire of its sovereign government and its people. The use of leverage would also call into question the U.S. commitment to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, which is the cornerstone of stability in Europe. In it, all parties, including the United States, commit to “refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory” of all states in Europe.

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One uncomfortable truth is already inescapable. Free societies and autocracies are at odds with each other—over human rights, the rule of law, technology, freedom of the press, the free flow of information, and territorial expansion. At this particular moment, it is not sufficient to say that the free world is without a leader. He has actually defected to the other side.

  The Atlantic

It's time to stop calling him the leader of the free world. That position is up for grabs. Or, perhaps it never should have been levied on any one country's leader.

“It’s an insult from a close friend and ally,” Michael Aastrup Jensen, a member of the Danish Parliament with the influential center-right Venstre party, told The Washington Post. He said Trump’s interest in purchasing Greenland took the country by surprise and was initially widely considered to be a joke, before Danes realized the full extent of “this disaster.”

Jensen said Danish lawmakers felt misled and “appalled” by the president, who “lacks even basic diplomatic skills,” he said. “There was no word [ahead of time] about: ‘I want to buy Greenland, and that’s why I’m coming.’ ”

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Trump’s behavior reminded him of “a spoiled child,” Soren Espersen, foreign affairs spokesman for the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party, told Danish newspaper Politiken.

Martin Lidegaard, the chairman of the Danish parliament’s foreign policy committee and a former foreign minister, said in an interview that he hoped Danes would not take this “quite absurd” episode too seriously.

“Understandably, a lot of people are angry,” he said, “but we should not let Trump impact Danish-U. S. relations” in a negative way.

  WaPo

After all, he's only THE FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: