In the past few days, Donald Trump turned the US presidency into a tool for his personal glory and vengeance. On Saturday, he threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25% on a bloc of European countries until Denmark agrees to sell Greenland to the US. The next day, Trump texted Norway’s prime minister, saying his failure to win the Nobel peace prize was one of the reasons he’s intent on seizing control of Greenland. After being snubbed for last year’s award, Trump said he no longer felt the need “to think purely of peace”.
By Tuesday morning, as European leaders continued to absorb the shock of Trump’s threats and insults, the president posted an AI-generated meme that showed him planting a US flag on the island, flanked by his vice-president and secretary of state. “Greenland. US Territory. Est. 2026,” the image said. (Trump shared another image, also apparently edited by AI, that showed him sitting alongside a map of the US that includes Canada, Greenland and Venezuela, as he spoke with European leaders assembled at the White House.) Later on Tuesday, when he was asked at a press conference how far he was willing to go to acquire Greenland, Trump responded tersely: “You’ll find out.”
On Wednesday, after a bombastic speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump backed away from his threat to impose tariffs on European countries and said he had reached “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland with the Nato secretary general. In other words, Trump began to defuse a global crisis of his own making.
Over the past year, the world watched Trump’s second term devolve into a brazen campaign of self-enrichment. He has exploited the presidency to make himself and his family richer, bullied allies and enemies alike into accepting his coercive and erratic foreign policy, and sullied the US’s image around the globe.
Trump’s campaign to seize Greenland from Denmark is the endpoint of his transactional and corrupt approach to governing since he returned to office: an attempt to use the immense financial and military power of the American state to strong-arm a property deal that he believes will enhance his legacy. What other modern real estate mogul can claim to have achieved such a prize, securing a territory of 836,000 square miles – three times the size of Texas?
Until his meetings in Davos, Trump had shown little interest in negotiating agreements with Denmark and other Nato allies to expand the existing US military presence in Greenland, which could include adding bases, radars and ballistic missiles. He had set his goal as nothing short of US ownership of the Danish territory. In an interview with the New York Times earlier this month, Trump explained his outlook on control of Greenland in real estate terms, preferring outright ownership to a lease agreement or treaty. “Ownership is very important,” he said, adding: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success.” When asked if he meant ownership of Greenland was important for himself or for the US, Trump responded: “Psychologically important for me.”
It’s the latest example of how Trump, the first convicted felon elected president, unleashed his basest instincts in his second term: the state exists to serve the ego of its leader, and if the world refuses to validate him, the world will pay a price. If Denmark continued to insist it won’t sell Greenland, Trump had refused to rule out using military force to seize the territory – until he did so in his speech at Davos.
He was also emboldened by the quick US military operation on 3 January that captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, with no American casualties. For Trump and his sycophantic aides, US foreign policy is now based on the worldview of might makes right – and they think Europe and its leaders are too weak to resist American military and economic dominance.
To achieve his grand territorial ambitions and soothe his bruised ego over the Nobel peace prize, Trump is willing to fracture the nearly 80-year-old Nato alliance, instigate a transatlantic trade war with Europe, and perhaps even trigger a military confrontation with US allies.
How did we get here?
When he returned to office last year, Trump gutted federal agencies, fired tens of thousands of government workers and issued dozens of executive orders intended to expand his power. He also rushed to dismantle many of the laws and other anti-corruption safeguards put in place by Congress after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. Trump fired 17 inspectors general who had served as ethics watchdogs over various agencies. He appointed loyalists to run the justice department and FBI, and circumvented Congress to install his allies as top federal prosecutors across the country. Within a few months, Trump had dismantled many mechanisms of accountability designed to impose ethical and legal boundaries – and constrain past US presidents.
With little outrage or resistance from Congress and the rest of the political establishment in Washington, Trump was emboldened to expand presidential authority and ignore norms set by his predecessors. Fearful of angering the president and his Maga base, the Republican majority in Congress allowed Trump to infringe on its authority over government spending and agencies.
The US supreme court also paved the way for Trump’s power grab, issuing a ruling in July 2024 which gave him “absolute immunity” from prosecution for his official acts as president. The court’s conservative majority – which Trump helped create by appointing three of its justices during his first term – ruled 6-3 in his favor. In a dissent that now seems prescient, the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the majority’s decision as a “mockery” that could turn the US president into a “king above the law”.
“Let the president violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends,” Sotomayor wrote, citing a leader who might order the US military to assassinate a political rival, organize a coup to hold on to office, or take a bribe in exchange for a pardon – and still receive immunity for all of these acts. She added: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done … In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”
The lack of checks on Trump, and immunity from potential criminal prosecution, has allowed him not only to reshape the US government and expand his power, but also enabled him to profit from the presidency in unprecedented ways. The president is exempt from conflict of interest laws that prohibit federal employees from exploiting their positions for personal profit. Since the Watergate cover-up, which forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency in 1974, every US president had voluntarily abided by these rules. But in his first term, Trump refused pressure to divest from his business ventures, and argued that his sons had taken control of the Trump Organization.
In his second term, Trump has monetized the presidency to an astounding level. By some estimates, he has used the office to make at least $1.4bn for himself and his family. That includes millions of dollars in licensing fees paid to the Trump Organization as part of more than 20 foreign real estate projects, some of which involve foreign governments seeking favor with the US administration. (The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has responded by saying: “Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”)
The largest windfall for Trump has come from new cryptocurrency ventures, especially a $2bn stablecoin project with an investment fund backed by the government of the United Arab Emirates. That project, which could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for the president’s family, was announced two weeks before Trump allowed the UAE access to buy advanced computer chips critical for AI development.
With no guardrails or opposition to prevent Trump’s massive power grab and personal self-enrichment, is it any surprise that he had threatened US allies with economic warfare unless they agreed to sell Greenland and help him achieve his territorial conquest? Trump is transforming the US from a superpower into a protection racket ruled by his whims.
For the past year, Trump has grown more vindictive, narcissistic and erratic – and a greater danger not just to America, but to the world.
Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
