Trump wants to own Greenland for amazingly stupid reasons

When it comes to Trump demanding that the United States own Greenland, trying to figure out why our Authoritarian-in-Chief is so obsessed with this reminds me of Carrie’s evidence wall in Homeland — where Claire Danes’ bipolar CIA agent character would pin oodles of photos, clippings, post-it notes, and such, sometimes connected with strings, in an attempt to figure out who lay behind a terrorist plot.

Fortunately, Trump isn’t nearly as sophisticated as the evildoers in Homeland. While it can be really tough to figure out what Trump will do, because he changes his mind so often he doesn’t even know himself what he wants to do, Trump is such an open book that he leaves little doubt about his core motivations.

These are my best guesses about why Trump can’t stop talking about the United States owning Greenland.

Mercator projection. Because the world is round rather than flat, a two-dimensional map of the world causes regions in the far north and far south to appear much larger than they are on a globe that mimics the actual shape of Earth. The map above that is on the Visual Capitalist web site shows the familiar Mercator projection in light blue while the actual size of countries and continents is shown in dark blue.

Greenland is large, about three times the size of Texas. But it isn’t more than twice the size of the United States, which is how Greenland appears on flat maps. Since Trump loves to obtain real estate, probably he gazes upon a Mercator projection with developer zeal in his heart, dreaming of acquiring such a gigantic island.

Same applies to Canada, whose size also is greatly exaggerated on a Mercator projection, as is Russia’s size. Russia actually is only about as wide as China and India, not the gigantic size shown in the Mercator projection.

Nobel Peace Prize envy. This isn’t so much as a guess, as a certainty, since Trump revealed it in a text message to Norway’s prime minister. A New York Times story says:

President Trump is now claiming that one reason he is pushing to acquire Greenland is that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a text message he sent to Norway’s prime minister over the weekend.

Jonas Gahr Store, Norway’s leader, received the text message on Sunday, an official in the prime minister’s office said on Monday.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Mr. Trump wrote in the message, which was first published by PBS.

Mr. Trump also questioned Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying, “There are no written documents,” and adding, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you!”

Per usual, Trump gets a lot of things wrong in his message to Store. The cutoff for 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominations was in 2024, before Trump was inaugurated as president. Even after he became president, he didn’t stop eight wars. In fact, arguably he hasn’t stopped any, since the conflict between Israel and Hamas is still going on despite a supposed peace agreement.

María Corina Machado of Venezuela, the actual winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, gave her prize to Trump in a desperate attempt to curry favor with him, since so far Trump has cozied up to the remains of the Maduro regime instead of dissidents like Machado. This made Trump look really pathetic, like a man who was given an Olympic track medal and now thinks he is one of the fastest runners in the world. (The Peace Prize can’t be transferred; just the medallion can.)

Otherwise, Trump blathers on about needing to acquire Greenland because Russia or China might take it over if the United States doesn’t own it, and claiming that our country needs Greenland for security reasons.

Both claims are laughable. There’s no evidence Russia or China has designs on Greenland, and the United States already has a 1951 agreement with Denmark that allows the United States to have as many military bases as it wants on Greenland.

UPDATE: Here’s another reason. Trump’s childish desire to have his own way on everything he wants, or he’ll engage in a temper tantrum. We expect that of two year old children, but not the president of the United States. An ABC story says:

President Donald Trump reportedly told The New York Times that his “own morality” serves as the thing that could potentially limit his global powers — adding that he doesn’t “need international law.”

As part of a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published Thursday, Trump was asked Wednesday whether there were any limits to his global powers.

“Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” Trump reportedly said to The New York Times.

“I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people,” Trump added.