Speaker 1: You're expect to take an action against Greenland.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't want to talk about Greenland.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Venezuela, Russia in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Right after the dramatic capture of Venezuela's president by US forces,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump claimed he didn't want to talk about Greenland,
Speaker 1: but he just couldn't help himself.
Speaker 2: I will say this about Greenland. We need Greenland from
Speaker 2: a national security to the situation. It's so strategic. Right
Speaker 2: now Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships.
Speaker 4: All over the place.
Speaker 2: We need Greenland from the standpoint of nationals.
Speaker 1: It isn't the first time Trump has shown an interest
Speaker 1: in the island. He's talked about buying Greenland for years,
Speaker 1: describing it as a large real estate deal. But now
Speaker 1: in no uncertain terms, Greenland's Prime minister has pushed.
Speaker 3: Back Cornland big. I so will say Greenland does not
Speaker 3: want to be owned by the USA. Greenland does not
Speaker 3: want to be governed by the USA. Greenland will not
Speaker 3: be part of that.
Speaker 1: Trump has ordered the military to draw up an invasion
Speaker 1: plan for the island. Meanwhile, high level talks between the
Speaker 1: foreign ministers of Greenland, Denmark and the White House has
Speaker 1: ended in stalemate. Sweden, France, and Norway have begun sending
Speaker 1: armed forces to Greenland at Denmark's request, and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is doubling down.
Speaker 2: We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they
Speaker 2: like it or not, and we're not going to have
Speaker 2: Russia or China as a neighbor.
Speaker 1: I'm Nicole Johnston, and you're listening to seven AM Today.
Speaker 1: Defense editor at The Economist Shashank Joshi on why Trump
Speaker 1: wants Greenland and how his plan could change the world.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, January sixteenth, Shoshank. When Trump says we need
Speaker 1: Greenland for national security, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it means many things. Some Republicans have
Speaker 3: argued that it means Russia in China pose a threat
Speaker 3: to the Arctic, and Greenland is a vital outpost for
Speaker 3: monitoring those threats, and that Denmark is incapable of protecting
Speaker 3: the island against those threats. I'm a little bit skeptical
Speaker 3: of that explanation, in part because Donald Trump is also
Speaker 3: at the same time negotiating with the Russians on business
Speaker 3: deals for drilling in the Arctic as part of his
Speaker 3: Ukraine diplomacy, which leads me to wonder is it really
Speaker 3: about security. I think it is much more about two
Speaker 3: other things. One of them is the resources that are
Speaker 3: under Greenland's earth, which are some of the rare earth
Speaker 3: materials that the modern economy is in great need of.
Speaker 3: I think it has something like forty million tons of
Speaker 3: rare earth in what's called oxide form. So that's one
Speaker 3: of the biggest reserves in the Earth, possibly second biggest,
Speaker 3: aft to China. And of course, as your listeners will know,
Speaker 3: China has a great dominance over the global supply of
Speaker 3: those rules and materials. So that's part of the answer.
Speaker 3: But I think part of the answer is also that
Speaker 3: if you go back to Donald Trump's inaugural address about
Speaker 3: a year ago, this time of year ago, he cited
Speaker 3: President William McKinley, and he cited the concept of manifest destiny.
Speaker 4: And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars,
Speaker 4: launching American astronauts.
Speaker 3: And I think he would simply like the administration to
Speaker 3: be the first one in many, many years, in a century.
Speaker 3: Perhaps that has resulted in the growth of American soil,
Speaker 3: the expansion of America on a map.
Speaker 4: One that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities,
Speaker 4: raises our expectations.
Speaker 3: And I think that that sense of control, that sense
Speaker 3: of growth, animates him. Indeed, just as we're talking, he
Speaker 3: has posted a social media image presenting himself as the
Speaker 3: acting President of Venezuela. I think all of that appeals
Speaker 3: to him.
Speaker 1: Can you lay out for a Shishenk how Greenland's government
Speaker 1: currently works and how it connection to Denmark functions well.
Speaker 3: Greenland effectively has its foreign policy and many of those
Speaker 3: other big picture issues like communications run from Copenhagen from Denmark,
Speaker 3: which is sort of the parent government. It's part of
Speaker 3: the Kingdom of Denmark. It is not a kind of colony.
Speaker 3: It's not, for example, the equivalent of Micronesia to the
Speaker 3: United States, a state of free association, although it is
Speaker 3: self governing domestically for many domestic issues. It has a democracy,
Speaker 3: It has a local government with elections taking place with
Speaker 3: a vibrant democratic process. But it is not, as I
Speaker 3: think Donald Trump put it, a sort of protectorate or
Speaker 3: colony that is there simply by virtue of Denmark having
Speaker 3: landed a canoe on the island dis Donald Trump put it.
Speaker 1: Trump is insisting that Chinese and Russian ships are swarming
Speaker 1: around Greenland? Are they and what is their presence there?
Speaker 3: No, they're not. But I took Trump to be speaking
Speaker 3: figuratively talking about heightened Russian and Chinese activity in the region.
Speaker 3: If that's what he meant, then that's fair enough. There
Speaker 3: is heightened Russian and Chinese activity. Russian submarines have been
Speaker 3: more active, you know, Russian ice breakers have been more active.
Speaker 3: And of course the melting sea ice in the Arctic
Speaker 3: region means that there are new sea routes opening up
Speaker 3: that allow the Chinese to go from the North rather
Speaker 3: than all the way down through the Atlantic through the Pacific,
Speaker 3: and so that also is going to increase the level
Speaker 3: of Chinese commercial and dual use activity in the region.
Speaker 3: In fact, there's the story from a few years ago
Speaker 3: in the first Trump administration where James Massis, and you
Speaker 3: may remember him as Trump's first Secretary of Defense, he
Speaker 3: complained to the Danes because the Chinese, a Chinese company
Speaker 3: was building three airports on Greenland, and the Americans saw
Speaker 3: this as a strategic project, as a potential threat, and
Speaker 3: that was eventually mixed after coordination between Denmark and America.
Speaker 3: So Trump, to me, not that there's kind of an
Speaker 3: armada of ships, you know, patrolling up and down Greenland's coastline,
Speaker 3: but that there is additional civilian, industrial, scientific, military, intelligence,
Speaker 3: Russian and Chinese interest in activity throughout the Arctic, including
Speaker 3: in the waters around Denmark. And I think if we
Speaker 3: don't exaggerate that point, it's fair enough.
Speaker 1: We know that Trump's interest in Greenland isn't you. He's
Speaker 1: been talking about it for years. But how has his
Speaker 1: position or his game plan on it changed, especially in
Speaker 1: the second term.
Speaker 3: I think very simply, his desire to acquire Greenland has intensified,
Speaker 3: and his willingness to talk about military options or to
Speaker 3: leave them prominently on the table has grown. What we
Speaker 3: saw is that whereas the pursuit of Greenland was slightly
Speaker 3: haphazard and superficial in the first term, it's been much
Speaker 3: more concerted and serious in the second. And I think
Speaker 3: a bit of evidence to that is a Tora Greenland
Speaker 3: by jd Vance, the Vice President back in March. Vice
Speaker 3: President JD Vance and second Lady Ushavance in Greenland. Today
Speaker 3: it comes as President Trump says, the US needs the
Speaker 3: island for nationals. You need to ensure that America is
Speaker 3: leading in the Arctic, because we know that if America doesn't,
Speaker 3: other nations will fill the gap where we fall behind,
Speaker 3: and other efforts, some of them identified by Denmark's intelligence services,
Speaker 3: by US intelligence agencies, to cultivate networks of influence in Greenland,
Speaker 3: including amongst the country's independence movement. There is clearly an
Speaker 3: effort to try to push the independence movement against Copenhagen,
Speaker 3: against Denmark. In addition to that, we've also seen more
Speaker 3: serious proposals developed in the White House about how exactly
Speaker 3: America could pull away Greenland, including the suggestion that they
Speaker 3: could pay a large lump sum payment to the residents
Speaker 3: of Greenland to persuade them to join the United States.
Speaker 3: Perhaps they say something called a compact of free association,
Speaker 3: which is a type of arrangement America has with other
Speaker 3: very small nations around the world in which America has
Speaker 3: basically untrammeled and free access in return for certain privileges
Speaker 3: for those countries. Now, Greenland is a horrified by this.
Speaker 3: They don't really seem very tempted by money or by
Speaker 3: these blandishments, but the fact that the administration is working
Speaker 3: up these options in a very serious way is quite distinctive.
Speaker 3: It's quite different from Trump.
Speaker 1: One coming up, how europe is reacting and what it
Speaker 1: means for NATO. Shashank how A Danish and more broadly,
Speaker 1: European leaders responding to this latest move by Trump.
Speaker 3: Alarm, horror, deep concern. You see this in the fact
Speaker 3: that Denmark's approach was initially to say, we're not going
Speaker 3: to take a public fight with the US on this.
Speaker 3: We're going to have quiet diplomacy. We're going to talk
Speaker 3: to them behind the scenes, behind closed doors. And when
Speaker 3: other European governments asked the Danes, hey, what would you
Speaker 3: like us to do, Denmark said, actually nothing, Just stay quiet,
Speaker 3: stay calmed. You know, we're going to deliver this message
Speaker 3: in private. Just leave it to us. This time everything
Speaker 3: has changed. The messaging is public. We have the Danish
Speaker 3: Prime minister saying an attack on Greenland would be the
Speaker 3: end of NATO.
Speaker 1: Well, if the US chooses to attack another NATO country,
Speaker 1: then everything stops.
Speaker 3: We have the Swedish Prime minister expressing grave concern. Sweden,
Speaker 3: the Nordic countries, the Baltic States, and several large countries
Speaker 3: in Europe are standing together in support of our Danish friends.
Speaker 3: We have states that normally are very cautious about criticizing
Speaker 3: in the United States, like Kastamer's government here in the UK,
Speaker 3: and even they have signed up to joint statements with
Speaker 3: other countries rebuking the Americans, saying that Greenland is a
Speaker 3: bilateral matter between Denmark and Greenland. The future of Greenland
Speaker 3: is for Greenland, and the Kingdom of Denmark for Greenland
Speaker 3: in the future of demok only. And so I think
Speaker 3: you see a much more public strategy of rebuke and pushback,
Speaker 3: with some question swirling around as to well, should we
Speaker 3: have more military exercises around Greenland? Should we put troops
Speaker 3: on Greenland to try to deter an American annexation? But
Speaker 3: I think the great kind of paradox is that you
Speaker 3: have this European panic over American predatory behavior over Greenland,
Speaker 3: but at the same time Europeans need the United States
Speaker 3: to provide security guarantees for any ceasefire in Ukraine, and
Speaker 3: we saw that with the presence of Jared Kushner, the
Speaker 3: President's son in law, and Steve Whitcoff's envoy for Ukraine
Speaker 3: in Paris just a week ago. And Europeans have to
Speaker 3: walk that tightrope in a very careful way.
Speaker 1: As you said, the Danish Prime Minister has threatened an
Speaker 1: end to NATO if Trump pursues this. Trump's repeatedly been
Speaker 1: dismissive about NATO. Could we be about to see the
Speaker 1: end of it?
Speaker 3: Not yet, I think we're still some from that scenario.
Speaker 3: But I do believe that if he decides to try
Speaker 3: to absorb Greenland without the permission of anyone else, for example,
Speaker 3: by annexing it legally, even without a shot being fired,
Speaker 3: even without a so called invasion of Greenland, I think
Speaker 3: that that would be the end of NATO. Because NATO
Speaker 3: is an alliance that relies on political cohesion, it relies
Speaker 3: on trust, and America is the backbone of the alliance.
Speaker 3: You know, an American four star general is the supreme
Speaker 3: Allied command of Europe, the sacure, who sits in the
Speaker 3: NATO military headquarters its shape near Brussels, and leads the
Speaker 3: alliance and writes up its war plans. American military equipment
Speaker 3: is the backbone of the alliance, specifically air power that
Speaker 3: would be used to defeat Russia. And so if there
Speaker 3: is no longer any trust that America would come to
Speaker 3: the aid of Europe, because in fact, it is just
Speaker 3: cannibalized part of Europe to the West. I think that
Speaker 3: that would spell the end of NATO as a functional
Speaker 3: defensive alliance against Russia. You would see effectively a moment
Speaker 3: of profound crisis in Europe that would result in defense
Speaker 3: spending climbing up to near double digit rates and a
Speaker 3: sense of wartime panic.
Speaker 1: So what would that scenario I mean for Russia and China.
Speaker 3: Well, I think on the one hand, Russia in China
Speaker 3: will be delighted by a world in which they feel
Speaker 3: they can take territory against all semblance of international law
Speaker 3: on the basis of force. That world is good for China,
Speaker 3: it's good for Russia, and so too is a world
Speaker 3: in which the Western Alliance is unable to mount a
Speaker 3: unified response to their aggression, is unable to agree on sanctions,
Speaker 3: is unable to agree on joint exercises, is unable to
Speaker 3: come to the defense of a country like Ukraine or
Speaker 3: of Taiwan in the event that that was attacked. Having
Speaker 3: said that, China views Taiwan in quite different terms, China
Speaker 3: used Taiwan, as your listeners will know, as part of
Speaker 3: Chinese territory, and whether you agree with that or disagree
Speaker 3: with That is not the point. The point is legally
Speaker 3: they don't feel that they need any legal backing to
Speaker 3: be able to seize Taiwan by force. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if this will drastically change their options. But if
Speaker 3: I was see Jinping and I were looking at this
Speaker 3: Trump administration, I would say this, remaining three years of
Speaker 3: the Trump administration, I am not going to find a
Speaker 3: president who is likely to be more amenable to cutting
Speaker 3: a deal with me over the conquest of Taiwan if
Speaker 3: I seize Taiwan and then promise, for example, the free
Speaker 3: flow of semiconductors from the island to America, just as
Speaker 3: you know he wants the free flow of oil from Venezuela.
Speaker 3: He doesn't care about the democratic status of Taiwan. He
Speaker 3: just cares about the economic benefit to the United States.
Speaker 3: And I think that that would shape my judgment is
Speaker 3: China in a way that would favor invasion or conquest
Speaker 3: or annexation of Taiwan, and that I believe is a
Speaker 3: very dangerous thing.
Speaker 1: What do you think Trump is going to actually do
Speaker 1: in Greenland? What could happen next?
Speaker 3: I find it very hard to predict Trump's future actions,
Speaker 3: but I think that there is a growing risk, although
Speaker 3: still below fifty percent, so still mercifully unlikely, that he
Speaker 3: simply declares large parts of Greenland to be sovereign base
Speaker 3: areas to be in his control, to be part of
Speaker 3: the United States. He wouldn't have to invade, he wouldn't
Speaker 3: have to fire shots. He would simply say that Petufic
Speaker 3: Space Force Base in Greenland is henceforth sovereign US territory.
Speaker 3: He could also, and I fear that this is also
Speaker 3: something he's been willing to do, impose heavy tariffs against Denmark,
Speaker 3: against the EU. He could put sanctions on Danish officials
Speaker 3: until they negotiate with America to allow Greenland to succeed
Speaker 3: and sell it to the United States. But he believes
Speaker 3: everything can be bought, and I think that he will
Speaker 3: first go down the route of attempting to buy it,
Speaker 3: and only when that route is completely closed will he
Speaker 3: entertain more extreme options.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, thank you so much for your time,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having me. Also in the news,
Speaker 1: Anthony Alberizi says he's stunned by Susan Lee's claims that
Speaker 1: Labour's hate crime and gun reforms are unsalvageable. The Coalition
Speaker 1: has spent weeks criticizing the Prime Minister for not immediately
Speaker 1: recalling Parliament to deal with legislation in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: the Bondai attacks. Now, with Parliament due to razume on
Speaker 1: Monday to debate new laws, the Coalition has signaled they
Speaker 1: won't support them and says the legislation has been rushed
Speaker 1: and the Adelaide Festival has issued an unreserved apology to
Speaker 1: Palestinian Australian author doctor Runda Abdulphatar after canceling her invitation
Speaker 1: from Adelaide Writer's Week. The decision sparked a widespread boycott
Speaker 1: of writers, resignation of the program director, a mass resignation
Speaker 1: of the board, and the cancelation of the festival. Now,
Speaker 1: the Adelaide Festival has released a statement saying they retract
Speaker 1: the claim that it would have been culturally insensitive for
Speaker 1: Abdulphata to participate, that artistic freedom is a powerful human right,
Speaker 1: that the board fell short, and that she's invited to
Speaker 1: speak at next year's event. I'm Nicole Johnston. This is
Speaker 1: seven am. We'll be back tomorrow.