from (Australian) ABC Religion & Ethics program

‘The ugly American’: Trump is uncouth and nakedly imperialistic, but we must imagine a future without him You can hear Professor O’Connor discuss Trump’s territorial ambitions and disruption of the “rules-based international order” with Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens on The Minefield.

US President Donald Trump believes he should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for what he (falsely) claims to be his role in “having stopped 8 wars PLUS”. But it seems he will accept Greenland as a consolation prize. That he felt personally slighted by the Nobel snub is abundantly clear from a remarkable letter he sent to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre:

    Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize … 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. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? … I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.

When asked by reporters from The New York Times why the United States needed to “own” Greenland, he said ownership was “Psychologically important for me”. But this interest in acquiring Greenland is nothing new. He expressed it repeatedly during his first term, and told Peter Baker and Susan Glasser back in 2021: (read on)