Speaker 1: Kiyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herul. European leaders
Speaker 2: are baffled as Trump digs his heels in over Greenland.
Speaker 2: The US President has threatened to impose tariffs on eight
Speaker 2: allies who remain opposed to his potential takeover of the
Speaker 2: Danish territory. A ten percent levy will kick in on
Speaker 2: February first, possibly rising to twenty five percent on June first,
Speaker 2: affecting Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and
Speaker 2: the UK. Trump has said the import taxes will remain
Speaker 2: in place until such time a deal is reached for
Speaker 2: the complete and total purchase of Greenland by the US.
Speaker 2: But what does the United States want with Greenland? And
Speaker 2: how soon will it be until New Zealand is swept
Speaker 2: up in the chaos? Today on the front page, why
Speaker 2: get the University International law professor Al Gillespie is with
Speaker 2: us today us through what could happen next? First off,
Speaker 2: our Trump has floated this idea about Greenland for years now,
Speaker 2: but now is actually trying to make it happen. What's
Speaker 2: changed between now and then?
Speaker 3: It's the second step back to begin with, because like
Speaker 3: the way Americans understand territory is different to most other nations,
Speaker 3: and so the ability to buy land from another country
Speaker 3: is something America did with Mexico, with France, with Spain,
Speaker 3: and even with Denmark. And so the country you see
Speaker 3: today is a conglomeration of at least four different deals,
Speaker 3: which made it in a much larger area than when
Speaker 3: it began in seventeen seventy six. And so some what
Speaker 3: mister Trump is now saying is, well, we can add
Speaker 3: to it, and so he's trying to continue a tradition.
Speaker 3: The problem is is that in betweentieth century, the practice
Speaker 3: came up that you needed people to have self determination,
Speaker 3: but they would work out whether they wanted to be
Speaker 3: part of another country or not. And so it wasn't
Speaker 3: just about the sale, it was about the consent of
Speaker 3: the people. And so mister Trump's dealing with an idea
Speaker 3: that came from the eighteenth century in the twenty first century,
Speaker 3: and he's discovering that the people of Denmark and the
Speaker 3: people of Greenland don't want to sell the territory to him.
Speaker 2: Well, he's reportedly refused to roll out using force or
Speaker 2: some kind of annexation if Denmark and Greenland won't agree
Speaker 2: to any kind of deal or sale. Rather, as well,
Speaker 2: in legal terms, how serious is that threat and what
Speaker 2: international norms would it kind of violate?
Speaker 3: The most basic principles, that is for each country to
Speaker 3: determine its own sovereignty and its own decisions about whether
Speaker 3: they want to join another country or another organization. But
Speaker 3: we're at a point with mister Trump where all of
Speaker 3: the international rules have been pushed to one side. Whether
Speaker 3: you're dealing with Venezuela or whether you're dealing with concerns
Speaker 3: over the larger disputes with China, you're seeing many things
Speaker 3: just what we want to assume were normal, no longer
Speaker 3: standing up to protest the time. International law itself is questionable,
Speaker 3: and the problem is not now of law, it's one
Speaker 3: of politics. Because it's bad to bully anyone, it's worse
Speaker 3: to bully your friends. And right now he's bullying countries
Speaker 3: which you're actually on his.
Speaker 2: Side, and in terms of its allies as well. He
Speaker 2: has promised a tariff his favorite word, he loves that word,
Speaker 2: on at least eight European countries, and starting February first
Speaker 2: and then upping it again in too twenty five percent
Speaker 2: later this year. If they don't comply, they've obviously met
Speaker 2: and holding a meeting all of the European leaders or envoys.
Speaker 2: What do you think those meet what would they be
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: The point of trying to apply economic pressure on another
Speaker 3: country to make it bend to your will is not
Speaker 3: something that should be done. You can imagine if China
Speaker 3: did this because they wanted an island in the Pacific,
Speaker 3: or Russia did it because they wanted further acquisitions in
Speaker 3: the Balkans or the Baltic and you can't behave like this.
Speaker 3: But the way it responds, the way it happens, is
Speaker 3: that the Europeans will now go back and say, do
Speaker 3: we have a counter tariff or do we have a
Speaker 3: collective response against this action which is destabilizing Europe. And
Speaker 3: because for a long time most countries have tried to
Speaker 3: have a policy of silence with mister Trump, and the
Speaker 3: best defense has meant to say nothing and just try
Speaker 3: to minimize the results or minimize the negative impacts. But
Speaker 3: he keeps upping the ante and so you start out
Speaker 3: with a ten percent tariff and now you get another
Speaker 3: fifteen percent because you speak out against a potential annexation
Speaker 3: of a friendly country. And so the hard part of
Speaker 3: the country is now is to work out whether they
Speaker 3: say anything or at what point they have to become
Speaker 3: a collective inspect.
Speaker 2: To what are their options when they do speak together,
Speaker 2: because they are standing as one voice. It's not often
Speaker 2: that Europe speaks when with one voice. Is that the
Speaker 2: likes of Serkias Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Georgia Maloney all
Speaker 2: agreeing over something is quite something to see what are
Speaker 2: their options?
Speaker 3: This is eight what their options are that they have
Speaker 3: countermeasures and so if mister Trump puts an additional fifteen
Speaker 3: percent on European goods going in for countries that support
Speaker 3: Denmark and Greenland, then the Europeans would then put a
Speaker 3: countermeasure on the American products coming in, and so we
Speaker 3: go into a deeper trayed war. But it's not all
Speaker 3: europe that are currently saying no to mister Trump. A
Speaker 3: lot of other countries are sitting along the side. And
Speaker 3: then it's not just the European countries, it's also the
Speaker 3: countries like what do you do with Japan, what do
Speaker 3: you do with Australia and of course, what do you
Speaker 3: do with New Zealand? And Each country right now is
Speaker 3: scared of putting their head up in case they get
Speaker 3: a backhand from mister Trump, because just to say we
Speaker 3: disagree means that you could have an economic consequence that
Speaker 3: could mean people's jobs and livelihood to put at risk.
Speaker 2: And what kind of position does that put New Zealand
Speaker 2: in Because we've always erred on the side of keeping
Speaker 2: your head down, right, well, we're.
Speaker 3: Becoming masters right now keeping our head down, and so
Speaker 3: you could see a situation like the invasion of Venezuela
Speaker 3: and the adduction of the president and so like we
Speaker 3: make needs very bland to statement about the support for
Speaker 3: international law, but we don't say what international law it is.
Speaker 3: We don't say whether the act was legal or it
Speaker 3: wasn't legal. We don't say whether the Maduro had diplomatic
Speaker 3: community or don't. We just try very hard not to
Speaker 3: offend mister Trump. And so right now the right thing
Speaker 3: to do is to say, you can't put economic pressure
Speaker 3: on the country if it doesn't want to sell itself
Speaker 3: to you. But we won't do that because we're scared
Speaker 3: of the repercussions if we speak out, and by the way.
Speaker 4: I'm a fan of Denmark too, I have to tell you,
Speaker 4: and you know they've been very nice to me. I'm
Speaker 4: a big fan. But you know the fact that they
Speaker 4: had boat land there five hundred years ago doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that they own the land. Sure, we had lots of
Speaker 4: boats go there also, but we need that because if
Speaker 4: you take a look outside of Greenland right now, there
Speaker 4: are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and bigger there
Speaker 4: are Russian submarines all over the place. We're not going
Speaker 4: to have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that's what
Speaker 4: they're going to do if we don't. So we're going
Speaker 4: to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way
Speaker 4: or the more difficult one.
Speaker 2: And I suppose on one hand you're kind of waiting
Speaker 2: until his term ends, but on the other hand, you
Speaker 2: know that he's trying to get everything done before his
Speaker 2: term ends and really make a name for himself and
Speaker 2: mark his place in history. Hey.
Speaker 3: The good thing is that Denizeland relationship, like the rest
Speaker 3: of the world relationship with America, is bigger than mister Trump.
Speaker 3: And so we've gone through rocky periods before and hopefully
Speaker 3: post mister Trump, that will come back to a more
Speaker 3: stable regime or more stable pattern, but it may not.
Speaker 3: As mister Vance comes in, It's possible that you may
Speaker 3: see a continuity of exactly the same approach. But the
Speaker 3: problem now is that you've got America not putting its
Speaker 3: pressure on countries which we have challenges with, but countries
Speaker 3: which are friends, countries which are allies. America can get
Speaker 3: all the defense arrangements that want with Greenland through NATO,
Speaker 3: and we can have good relationships with Denmark. It doesn't
Speaker 3: need to annex the country, and right now people aren't
Speaker 3: even sure why they want to annex the country. You
Speaker 3: go in with one reason, you state it's about defense.
Speaker 3: It might be about security, it might be about minerals.
Speaker 3: But there's no good faith in international relations and it's
Speaker 3: destabilizing everything.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: European politicians have said that Trump's treatment of long standing
Speaker 2: allies was just playing into Moscow and Beijing's hands. Do
Speaker 2: you agree?
Speaker 3: You could not have a better playbook for destabilizing the West,
Speaker 3: because the only chance that the West has of being
Speaker 3: a cohesive force again against either China or against Russia
Speaker 3: is if it's united. But when the United States is
Speaker 3: threatening economic sanctions, and not even lawing out military, which
Speaker 3: is just crazy against people on its own side. You've
Speaker 3: got to wonder what dream we've woken up in, because
Speaker 3: it's like the enemy has become not the external, but
Speaker 3: the internal. And this means that Europe in itself could
Speaker 3: break from nature. I don't think that will happen, but
Speaker 3: a lot of countries are now saying, well, who is
Speaker 3: the bigger threat right now? And can we rely on
Speaker 3: America which is not actually economically threatening Europeans the saying
Speaker 3: they don't want to sell something to the United States.
Speaker 2: And what is the point of an international rules based
Speaker 2: order if you've got America going into Venezuela and kidnap
Speaker 2: against president.
Speaker 3: The internationalalkspace order is upside down right now. The rivets
Speaker 3: that hold it together are all popping quite quickly, and
Speaker 3: it's important for countries like New Zealand to work out
Speaker 3: which way we go. And I would argue that we
Speaker 3: need to align ourselves more with the European values than
Speaker 3: and Australia in particular as well and traditional allies, because
Speaker 3: right now the United States is not representing the country
Speaker 3: with values that it's necessarily the same as what we
Speaker 3: believe in.
Speaker 2: What do you think it'll take for Luxe and to
Speaker 2: step out. Of course, I mean, especially given it's an
Speaker 2: election year. I'm not holding it at my breath in
Speaker 2: terms of, you know, doing anything out of the ordinary
Speaker 2: when it comes to everything on the world stage, any.
Speaker 3: Country which speaks out unilaterally without a collective behind it
Speaker 3: is a high risk. And you can look at what
Speaker 3: happened to Canada and you can see what's happening to Europe.
Speaker 3: And so what mister Luxem would require is all of
Speaker 3: the countries to speak out at the same time. Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe,
Speaker 3: the friends need to have one cohesive wots because as
Speaker 3: they remain fragmented, mister Trump will continued to bully his
Speaker 3: way through them one by one.
Speaker 1: Well, the first thing I'd say is that you know,
Speaker 1: the decision for Greenlander is a decision for Greenlanders. It's
Speaker 1: a sovereign state and it's pretty clear that they want
Speaker 1: to be part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The second
Speaker 1: thing I'd say is that Tariff's is not the way
Speaker 1: forward in terms of you know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: see it downard spiral of tariffs and for tat Tariff
Speaker 1: it's just not acceptable. We want to see it healthy.
Speaker 1: It's the New Zealand's interests to see a healthy transatlantic
Speaker 1: relationship in place. And actually we think through discussion and
Speaker 1: debate and dialogue. Actually, if the US has genuine concerns
Speaker 1: around Arctic security, we'll have those conversations. But you know,
Speaker 1: tariff is not the way forward. So it pretty clearly.
Speaker 2: If we go back to the beginning a little bit,
Speaker 2: why does Trump want Greenland?
Speaker 3: It's difficult to say. And part of the problem we've
Speaker 3: got now is that when you've got mister Trump doing
Speaker 3: certain things he does. He says one thing, but he
Speaker 3: does something else. So he goes into Venezuela and he's
Speaker 3: talking about the legal drugs trade ends up being about
Speaker 3: the acquisition of oil and the removal of someone he
Speaker 3: didn't like. I'm not a fan of Maduro, don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong, and it's right to replace him, but there's
Speaker 3: ways and means to do it. But the justification and
Speaker 3: the result are not the same thing. So when it
Speaker 3: comes to Greenland, what he wants, it could be he
Speaker 3: wants access to the Arctic Circle, he wants control of
Speaker 3: the minerals that are there, or it could be for
Speaker 3: defense purposes, and building a security shield. It could be
Speaker 3: all three, But on the defense point, it's critical to
Speaker 3: note he already has those rights through NATO and under
Speaker 3: existing arrangements. You don't need to annex or force the
Speaker 3: sale of the country to get greater security in defense
Speaker 3: for the United States, which would make many people suggest
Speaker 3: it's not about defense, it's actually something bigger that we
Speaker 3: can't yet see.
Speaker 2: Well, if Trump does need the US to take over
Speaker 2: Greenland to counter Chinese and Russian intelligence and threatn the Arctic,
Speaker 2: what is stopping him from then looking at the Cook
Speaker 2: Islands or similar and then be like, oh, we need
Speaker 2: to count on to Chinese and Russian threats in the Pacific.
Speaker 3: Now nothing is stopping him. In fact, it would be
Speaker 3: easier to take up parts of the Pacific where there's
Speaker 3: no alliance agreement like NATO and to say we need
Speaker 3: this because it's important to our security. But the risk
Speaker 3: here is not what mister Trump sees in the Pacific.
Speaker 3: It's what other countries seeing the Pacific. The risk is
Speaker 3: that China designed we need to take this country for
Speaker 3: our defense, or Russia says we need to take this
Speaker 3: country for our defense, and there's no international mechanism to
Speaker 3: stop this force. It starts off economic and ends up
Speaker 3: being militarily where one country wrongfully takes another one, and
Speaker 3: so the risk is huge. But we're already seeing that
Speaker 3: in this lawless will, where countries act to what they
Speaker 3: think are their self interests, not with regards to collective norms.
Speaker 2: Right. So down here in New Zealand and Australia to
Speaker 2: an extent as well, we might be looking at what
Speaker 2: Europe's doing and what's happening over Greenland and think, oh,
Speaker 2: that doesn't have too much to do with that literally
Speaker 2: on the other side of the world. But further down
Speaker 2: the line, if Greenland is Trump is successful in taking Greenland,
Speaker 2: then Russia and China are probably looking very closely and
Speaker 2: being like, oh, well we can he got away with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. And many people would argue that you're
Speaker 3: currently seeing that with Ukraine and also potentially with Taiwan,
Speaker 3: and that everyone who is not played by the rules
Speaker 3: get something that they want and be some kind of
Speaker 3: grand deal. And while the big players win, the smaller
Speaker 3: countries and the medium sized countries are at risk if
Speaker 3: the situation becomes very unstable in theory. In theory, it
Speaker 3: should work. In reality, it's a dog's breakfast and it's
Speaker 3: very dangerous because you're waiting for someone to step on
Speaker 3: someone else's toe and then full conflict to break out.
Speaker 2: If that were to happen, what kind of situation would
Speaker 2: that put us in? Because it's not as outlandish ideas
Speaker 2: as perhaps it sounds straight off the bat.
Speaker 3: What we need to do is, in an ideal world,
Speaker 3: if the Europeans put countermeasures, economic countermeasures on mister Trump
Speaker 3: for his threats to annex Greenland, we should join the countermeasures.
Speaker 3: We should be willing to stand with Europe to say
Speaker 3: that this is wrong. But we're afraid to do that
Speaker 3: right now. It's too difficult to think about what would
Speaker 3: happen if NATO went to war with itself. I do
Speaker 3: not think that will happen. I think that the relationship
Speaker 3: is stronger and deeper than what's happening. But mister Trump
Speaker 3: pushes things, and we've all seen it happen in every area,
Speaker 3: and what we think is settled one day the next
Speaker 3: day is upside down. I don't think military force will
Speaker 3: be used. I think economic pressure could escalate. The economic
Speaker 3: pressure will have implications for New Zealand. There will be
Speaker 3: spill over from future and deeper trayed conflicts. But New
Speaker 3: Zealand has to work out whether we remain silent or
Speaker 3: whether we join the Europeans and say you can't do that.
Speaker 2: Mister Trump, your role and is it likely given we
Speaker 2: are entering an election year and the keyword on everyone's
Speaker 2: agenda this year will be the economy. How much faith
Speaker 2: do you have in the current coalition government that they
Speaker 2: will stand up.
Speaker 3: I don't think if it's not done collectively, I don't
Speaker 3: think the current coalition government will stand up. But you
Speaker 3: have to ask at what point do you stand up?
Speaker 3: At what point is this some egregious action when you
Speaker 3: say enough is enough? And it's in New Zealand's greater
Speaker 3: interest to say no and object to mister Trump than
Speaker 3: to continue this pattern.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us OL.
Speaker 3: You're welcome, Chelsea.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidhrald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels. Caine. Dickie is
Speaker 2: our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and
Speaker 2: our executive producer is jane Ye. Follow the front page
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Speaker 2: join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.