President Donald Trump tweeted a humorous meme on Monday about his reported interest in purchasing Greenland from Denmark for the United States, showing a gold high-rise tower rising along the rocky, glacial coastline.
“I promise not to do this to Greenland!” the president joked.
I promise not to do this to Greenland! pic.twitter.com/03DdyVU6HA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
The meme appears to have been the work of Jon Gabriel, editor-in-chief of Ricochet, a conservative online publication. Gabriel tweeted an image of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, photoshopped into an image of the tiny town of Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. He added the caption: “Greenland in 10 years.”
Greenland in 10 years. pic.twitter.com/akqWowauyu
— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 15, 2019
The U.S. has offered to buy Greenland before, though not since President Harry S. Truman. It occupies a strategic position in the Arctic and is thought to be rich in resources — although many of them are inaccessible beneath a massive ice sheet. The island also occupies a key position along the flight path between Europe and many cities in the continental U.S.
Trump has said the purchase of the island is under consideration, though not a high priority. His critics have mocked the idea, and Greenland’s foreign minister, Ane Lone Bagger, told Reuters: “We are open for business, but we’re not for sale.”
However, as Trump once wrote in The Art of the Deal, “To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big” (p. 46).
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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