Trump Greenland saga -- ww3, Rare Metals, Oil and new Arctic Shipping Routes

Although nobody in America knows where Greenland is or how it is run . Last Friday, Donald Trump surprised everyone by raising the possibility of the US purchasing Greenland , which is the world’s largest island and an autonomous Danish territory. The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen however responded by saying that : “Greenland is not for sale, Greenland is not Danish, Greenland belongs to Greenland,” before adding that she hopes “that this is not meant seriously”. Trump then announced he was ditching his visit to Denmark as part of his European tour next month, dubbing Ms Frederiksen’s comments as “nasty and inappropriate” . "Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time," Trump tweeted Tuesday night. "The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!". Trump is actually not the first U.S official to mull buying Greenland. It came up while Andrew Jackson was president in the 19th century. Seward also considered it around the time the United States bought Alaska. In 1946, just a year after World War 2 ended, President Harry Truman actually offered $100 million US for the land in 1946. Known as the Greenland Proffer, the U.S. wanted the land for a Cold War military outpost. It didn't come to pass. The Soviet Union was quickly becoming Washington's main adversary and the shortest distance between the new rivals was over the North Pole. As the Arctic region started to look like a potential battleground, the Pentagon identified Greenland as a potential asset. If the Soviets launched an attack, American bombers stationed on the island would already be halfway to Moscow. While today, the immediate threat of an attack from the Soviet Union is impossible, Greenland offers political dominance on another scale. There are unknown quantities of oil, gas and rare metal in the Arctic waters and as the effects of climate change is melting the surface ice, they are becoming more accessible. Greenland harbours some of the largest deposits of them, including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, along with uranium, the byproducts of zinc and around 100 million tonnes of ore. The United States is a nation built through land purchases. In fact, the U.S. has looked to the resource-rich north to expand its borders in the past — most notably in 1867, when President Andrew Johnson took Alaska off Russia's hands. Here are some of the most notable land deals that helped shape the United States. #1.The Alaska Purchase: $7.2 million . On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and Edouard de Stoeckl, Russia's minister to the United States, signed the Treaty of Cession, which officially gave 1,518,800 square kilometres of land now known as Alaska to the United States. " the announcement conjures up in the mind of nearly every one visions of a cold, barren, and uninhabited region, converging about Behrings Straits, and celebrated only because Capt. Beechy and Sir John Franklin voyaged on its coasts," the New York Tribune wrote at the time. Even so, the newspaper's reporter saw the deal's value, declaring it "the most important international event affecting this continent which has occurred in many years." The sale did have some harsh critics, however, and in some circles became known as "Seward's folly." But within three decades, Alaska's value became clear when prospectors struck gold. The state, which increased the size of the United States by about 20 per cent, is now a key outpost for defence of the Arctic. #2.The Louisiana Purchase for $15 million . This transaction decades earlier, in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president, is considered one of the greatest real estate transactions in American history. France sold 2,141,920 square kilometres of land for $15 million US and nearly doubled the size of the United States in the process. Napoleon approached the United States with the offer as he abandoned his plans for a French empire in the Mississippi Valley and turned his attention elsewhere. The Americans pounced on it. The purchase actually included small bands of the land that later became Alberta and Saskatchewan. #3.Treaty of Hidalgo: $15 million , Signed in 1848, the Treaty of Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and saw Mexico give up about 1,359,744 square kilometres — about half of its land — for $15 million US and an end to the war. The deal stretched the United States westward to the Pacific Ocean, where California is now, as U.S. President James Polk had wanted in the years before the war. #4.The Gadsden Purchase: $10 million . This purchase five years after Hidalgo, in 1853, completed the U.S.'s continental expansion. Mexico still needed money in the wake of the Mexican-American War and finalized the border between the two countries at El Paso. Both the Gadsden Purchase and the Treaty of Hidalgo were part of "manifest destiny," an expansionist policy that had defined the Polk administration — and settled the country's main boundaries as they're known today. #5.Virgin Islands purchase for $25 million . Perhaps Trump was looking back to 1917 for inspiration on his Greenland proposition. That's when the United States bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark — then known as the Danish West Indies — for $25 million US during president Woodrow Wilson's administration. American leaders had been looking south to buy the islands for decades, dating back to Seward's time as secretary of state in the 1860s. In the 20th century, the United States approached Denmark to buy them out of fear Germany would annex Denmark and occupy the islands to attack ships. After initially declining the offer, Denmark later acquiesced after Secretary of State Robert Lansing suggested the United States might occupy them instead. #6.The Adams-Onis Treaty: $5 million . The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, took years for the United States and Spain to negotiate. Questions lingered over the borders of the Louisiana Purchase in what is now Florida, and in 1810, a group of settlers rebelled against Spanish rule. The final deal ceded what is now Florida to the U.S. Trump's offer to buy Greenland was a signal to Arctic nations and China, which has shown interest in the region, which is crucial for the control of new shipping routes opening up as ice sheets melt because of global warming. When it comes to the Russians, Trump's message is to say: 'You won't always be the main power in the Arctic even if you are the chair of the Arctic Council in 2021' . And when it comes to the Chinese, the message is 'We won't let you get a foothold in Greenland' . US has already increased its presence by re-establishing a consulate in Greenland's capital Nuuk, and helping to finance new airports, education and social programmes. Washington could be angling to buy the Gronnedal naval base in southern Greenland, "which the Danes ultimately decided not to sell in late 2017 because the only interested buyers were Chinese" . Greenland has enormous unexplored stores of natural resources, including zinc, lead, gold, iron ore, diamonds, copper and uranium, that Denmark has been unable or unwilling to exploit. It also has large, untapped stores of rare-earth elements, such as praseodymium or dysprosium, that are critical to the production of everything from electric cars to smartphones and lasers. Today, the United States gets many of these rare-earth elements from China, which makes Americans dependent on Beijing. Beijing may cut off access to those minerals in its trade war with Washington, and China is also trying to corner the market for rare-earth elements in Greenland. Buying Greenland would put those strategically valuable minerals in U.S. hands. But what makes Greenland particularly valuable to the United States are the new sea routes opening in the Arctic due to global warming , and that can be used for both commercial and military vessels. In May, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an address at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Finland in which he pointed out that “steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade. This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days.” He added that the emerging “Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st-century Suez and Panama canals.” The United States and its allies have a major interest in not allowing these Arctic sea lanes to fall under Russian or Chinese control. So what do you think ? about president Trump's idea of buying Greenland . Is Trump bidding for Greenland to fight Moscow aggression and corner Beijing in the Arctic








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