Jeff Childers :

Yesterday, the Global News Kingston (a Canadian paper) ran an eye-popping story headlined, “Trump threatens to acquire Canada, Greenland while next to NATO chief.” In a month packed with jaw-dropping developments, this might be the most astonishing. Trump isn’t letting go of his Canada and Greenland ambitions, and this time, he was clearer than ever—while sitting right next to a nodding, smiling Mark Rutte, the head of NATO.

image 3.png
During an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, a reporter asked President Trump about his plans to “take over Greenland.” Trump thoughtfully and succinctly replied, “I think it will happen.”

Denmark, which technically owns Greenland, is halfway across the planet. Trump openly questioned what Denmark has to do with it at all. “Denmark’s very far away and really has nothing to do with it. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something, and they say they have rights to it. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it is, actually.”

It was most hilarious because it’s another classic Trump inversion. For decades, globalists and progressives have decried colonialism at top volume. Now, Trump has them flipping their script to defend Denmark’s colonial rule over Greenland. It’s an exquisite mega-troll.

Trump delicately invoked a military option. “We have a couple of bases on Greenland already and quite a few soldiers,” he said, before pointing to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and saying “maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers go in there.” Chuckling, he added, “Pete—don’t answer that!”

Instead of confronting President Trump, NATO chief Rutte noddingly agreed that the Arctic is critical for Western security. The Secretary General kept praising President Trump, for one thing or another, and maniacally laughing at all his jokes. Rutte allowed that Arctic security was indeed an important goal— and agreed it was a goal to be pursued “under U.S. leadership.”

Then Trump turned to his idea of a Canada takeover, explaining how bringing our northern neighbor into the U.S. would just make sense. “This would be the most incredible country visually,” he said. “If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago, and it makes no sense.”

Rutte said nothing about the possibility of the U.S. threatening Canada— a founding NATO member. He’s not the only one. The Global News reminded readers that, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was in the White House a few weeks ago, a reporter asked him about Canadian annexation and Starmer refused to comment, accusing the reporter of “trying to find a divide between us that doesn’t exist.”

? The flummoxed Canadians don’t know what to think or where to turn. Like our Democrats, they’re just trying to keep their heads above water in a storm of tariffs and half-joking invasion threats. Is Trump serious? If not, it’s the longest-running joke in geopolitical history. Is he negotiating? If so, he’s doing it in the most heavy-handed, impolite, and thoroughly un-Canadian way possible.

And will NATO rescue them? Apparently, NATO’s not interested. “Under U.S. leadership,” Rutte pledged, grinning like a man who knows exactly where his paycheck comes from.

I won’t pretend to know Trump’s actual endgame here. Sometimes, I marvel at the sheer surreality of life in 2025. But one thing is clear: The relentless drumbeat of Trump’s musings about annexing Greenland and Canada has thrown a magnificent shadow over the Ukraine negotiations. How can anyone clutch their pearls over Russia invading Ukraine for its security reasons while Trump is casually debating whether a Danish canoe was enough to stake its claim to Greenland? Or maybe Greenland is still up for grabs?

We call shotgun.

One more observation on Rutte’s butt-kissing. The international media is buzzing with the idea that Europe has “figured out” Trump—just flatter him, and he’ll be more generous. Their theory? Trump craves praise, doesn’t hold grudges, and rewards loyalty. Say nice things, and you get what you want.

Criticize him, and you get a digital artillery barrage of mean tweets. So the elite European playbook says: butter him up, avoid public criticism, and reap the benefits.

They completely miss the brilliance of Trump’s strategy. He’s not rewarding obsequiousness—he’s rewarding cooperation and the positive press that comes with it. As the headlines about Rutte’s meeting prove, Trump himself is elevated every time NATO’s chief offers a passive endorsement. Whether Rutte meant it or not is irrelevant.

The words of flattery themselves have power. Trump is creating consensus.

In under two months, Trump has converted defiant NATO creatures who were taking oaths to resist to the last bureaucrat into fawning assistants.

Where is it all going? Who knows—we’re off the map. Even better, Trump isn’t just off the map. He’s ripping up the maps.

Remember that scene from The Matrix where the bald, spoon-bending student tells Neo, there is no spoon? Well, Neo, there is no map, either.