"Ha, ha, ha, I'm back!". On November 6, 2024, the day after his victory in the US elections, Donald Trump called the world's leaders. To several of them - for example, to Emmanuel Macron - he greeted them with a hearty laugh and a macabre warning: "Ha, ha, ha, I'm back!". And you will find out, especially in Europe, he should have added. The French president was bewildered. Waiting. Others, like Salvadoran Nayib Bukele, saw the move clearly: "Regardless of your political preference, whether you like what happened or not, I am sure you will not fully grasp the bifurcation of human civilization that began yesterday," he tweeted.
He was right. With Trump, the world enters a new carnivorous era in which the force of reason succumbs to the reason of force. The US president has outlined a global self-service board where the strong take what they want and power distribution is established through accomplished facts. The only question is whether this shift is reversible. The international order changed when the US "captured" dictator Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and will definitively explode if Trump fulfills his threat to "take over" Greenland by fair means - accessing its resources below the hypothetical market price: the art of the deal - or by foul means - the Monroe doctrine, but renamed as Donroe, to intervene without any real justification.
The world's largest island is territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, and therefore part of NATO. If the leading state of NATO invades it, not only will it definitively end the Atlantic alliance - already in agony - but it will be forcing, de facto, EU member states to assist Denmark "with all their means," as dictated by Article 42 of the Union Treaty. But Europe will not agree on anything relevant or dissuasive, because it lacks mechanisms to enforce its principles. It is the moral beacon of the world, yes: it shines, but remains motionless. Stunned. It has neither a common army, nor defensive industrial muscle, nor a real political union.
Greenland is Denmark and Denmark is a crucial partner of Spain. In fact, according to what EL MUNDO has learned, the government of the Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has contacted the Spanish government to analyze the situation and share their plans. As community partners they are. In addition to asking for help and calling for determination, the Danes have conveyed that "it is going to be very difficult" to prevent Trump from carrying out his colonization (or vassalage) operation of the island, and that they are "terrified" at the idea of clashing with the world's leading democratic power.
Let's not overlook that Trump's attempt to take over Greenland sets a "precedent," as the Danish interlocutors have conveyed. And that this "precedent" directly challenges Spain. If we think in MAGA logic, why Greenland now and Ceuta in the future not? Or Melilla? What will happen if Trump needs to satisfy his strategic partner Morocco, which is a key piece in the US and Israel's strategy to influence the Muslim world? Or, what if Trump "needs" the Canary Islands as a base to better compete with China and Russia in the African continent?
Precedent is the key word. The EU must do something - nothing can be expected from NATO under Mark Rutte - to prevent the law of the jungle from spreading as the guiding principle of the world order. The Greek government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis (member of the European People's Party) is also in communication with the Spanish government. And has conveyed that their main concern is that the Donroe doctrine opens a period of free-for-all to forcibly annex disputed or coveted territories. See Putin with Crimea and Donbass, Xi Jinping with Taiwan... or Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his claims on Greek islands and islets near his coast. This historical dispute in the Aegean Sea, like that of Greenland, is fought between two NATO member countries. And there Rutte remains, about to smear himself with orange makeup and dye his hair platinum blonde.
The future of Greenland is being decided today in the meeting of local ministers with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and with US Vice President JD Vance. What happens in that meeting will mark the beginning of an era of international anomy and geopolitical chaos... or the survival, hanging by a thread, of a world order based, even remotely, on rules. The "problem" of Greenland is that it is very appealing due to its mosaic of critical minerals for energy and technological transition, its privileged conditions for data centers, its oil and gas reserves, or its strategic location, especially now that Arctic ice melt opens new maritime trade routes.
But not only for that. One of Greenland's main "problems" - it must be written in italics, but very seriously - is that maps using the Mercator projection overstate its size. These sentences are real, spoken by Donald Trump in 2021: "I love maps. And I always said, 'Look at the size of this, it's huge, and it should be part of the US.' It's no different from a real estate business."
"A functional illiterate like Trump can achieve a form of genius for his ability to resonate with the spirit of the times," writes Giuliano da Empoli in his essential and up-to-date La hora de los depredadores (Seix Barral), in which he anticipates this new world of "Borgian" leaders.
Although the best summary of what is happening has not come from any essay, nor from the thoughtful heads of Western chancelleries, but from the satirical website El Mundo Today: "Europe loses patience with the US and seriously threatens to issue a statement."