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Donald Trump's Arctic push is heating
up. The White House is digging further
into how to take over the world's
largest island. I'm Ben Mal Rooney. The
West Block starts right now.
>> We need Greenland.
>> As the US president fixates on grabbing
Greenland, what are the local military
capabilities? We speak with a former
Danish patrol ship officer.
And this year has started off with a
bang, mostly thanks to Donald Trump.
What's more to come? We find out the
Donald Trump's takeover threats of
Greenland have gone from taunting to
terrifying. There are real possibilities
being mowled over in Washington about
how the Arctic territory could become
American turf through money or military
means. The US is looking at purchasing
the world's largest island outright, but
it could go another route. America
already has deals with the Republic of
the Marshall Islands, the Federated
States of Micronesia, and the Republic
of Palao. That type of agreement is
called a compact of free association,
which includes assistance with finances
and defense. Militarily, the US had a
significant presence in Greenland after
the Second World War, and that started
with Canada. In 1940, Canada had
military plans at the ready to defend
Greenland. That April, the fall of
Denmark left its colony island a
vulnerable unoccupied territory, one
rich in a unique mineral needed for war
plananes. At the time, Canada quickly
prepared to swoop in to protect those
mines from falling into German hands.
The operation was called Force X. Secret
Department of Defense documents called
for materials and equipment. Letters
were drafted with northern shipping
instructions. Telegrams flew back and
forth. Ottawa was pushing suppliers for
special cold weather clothing needed,
handcuffs, even napkin tables. It was a
different time. Costs were established.
Advanced party gear was ordered and
pistols issued to soldiers heading to
Greenland. But in May of 1940, as
quickly as it started, Force X was
dissolved. Why? The US stepped in. US
President Roosevelt pressed Prime
Minister McKenzie King to back away from
Greenland. And by the end of World War
II, the American military had 17
facilities on the island, only one of
which is still being used today. Joining
us now to talk about the military angle
in Greenland is Kenneth Olinerbul. He's
a former commander of the Royal Danish
Navy and currently teaches at the
University of Southern Denmark. Sir,
thank you so much for joining us.
>> Thank you very much. Now, you spent 40
years in the Danish armed forces and now
you teach international law. Can I first
get your personal reaction to Donald
Trump's threats to taking over Greenland?
Greenland?
>> Well, I think that is um very much
unfortunate because uh people in
Greenland do not want to become part of
the United States. They say very clearly
they don't want to become Americans.
They want to be Greenlanders. They have
of course an affiliation with Denmark
because they were until 1953 a Danish
colony and after the new constitution
uh Greenland became part of uh the
Danish kingdom. So uh we have had good
relations in general with Greenland but
of course there have also been some uh
cases and incidents over the years but I
think we are very much improving in our
relations right now.
Well, Trump has said that he would be
the arbiter of any limits to his own
authority, and he said, quote, "I don't
need international law." Uh, what's your
reaction to that?
>> Well, I think that's very unfortunate
because I think that uh until now, the
United States has very much uh been uh
promoting international law. They all
until now been speaking about the
rule-based world order. And the United
States has in fact benefited very well
from this rule-based world order uh
because it has made a a world that to
some extents benefits uh the United
States in its relation with other nations.
nations.
>> What do you think this disregard for
international law could lead to as far
as ripple effects in the future?
Well, it could and I think that uh the
current actions they have taken in
Venezuela even though uh very few people
in my part of the world is going to shed
any tears on the down uh fall on their
dictator. I think that uh it was not the
right way to do it. So, it I think it
demonstrates uh you could you could say
a disrespect for international law and
also the way that they have attacked
these so-called uh drug boats in the
Caribbean Sea.
>> Well, let let's look at this from the
military standpoint. Steven Miller,
Trump's aid, declined to rule out the
use of military force to take Greenland.
Talk to me about some of the potential
scenarios about how the US could
possibly use force.
Well, the interesting thing is that uh I
had a workshop with some American
colleagues in January this year and at
that point uh Trump had re uh
rejuvenated his interest in Greenland
and they were probably saying for fun,
yeah, we could probably use some of our
US Marine Corps trained in Arctic
warfare. And indeed the US Marine Corps
very often go to our neighbor in Norway
and train Arctic warfare every year. So
I would expect if they were going to do
that they would exactly bring in a a
Marine Corps expeditionary force and
they would probably go to for Nuke the
capital because Nuke is very much the
strategic center of gravity in
Greenland. Uh the government is there,
the Danish Arctic Command is there. Uh
there's a harbor, there's an airport.
About half of the population live in
Nuke. So I think that would what they
would uh aim for. There might also be
other places like Elulisat, the next
largest city, uh, Kangalusuak,
the major airport in Greenland, and
maybe al what we call station north,
where the Danish armed forces have a
very important base that patrols
northern and eastern part of Greenland.
>> Well, we're looking at that from the
perspective of the Americans. Miller
also said that no one would fight the US
over Greenland. Do you subscribe to
that? If the Americans came in, would
there be some sort of counter um counter action?
action?
>> I I would think there would be actually
in Denmark, we have had since 1952
what we call the royal decree whereby
Danish armed forces if our territory
Yeah. or if our forces outside the
territory come under attack, we are
under the obligation to respond uh as
vigorously as we can without any further
instructions and without waiting for instructions.
instructions.
Is you see it happens and you just have
to go. Well, Denmark also recently spent
about 13 billion euros on security in
Greenland. Do you know that what that
was used for?
Well, we are we are in a in a process of
upscaling. Uh we have uh four Arctic
patrol frigots. I used to serve on them
uh back in 1997 as an operations
officers, but they are overdue for
replacement. But otherwise, they are
very capable ships uh uh for sailing in
these kinds of waters. And uh we have uh
decided to buy five new. uh we are going
to uh buy drones. Uh we are talking
about uh establishing uh what we call an
Arctic Ranger battalion or something
like that. And uh we have also started
up training uh the local population in
very basic um uh military uh what we
call uh in so they can have the very
basic soldiers but we'll probably going
to build on that. So we will have some
kind of home guard up there. And then of
course we have uh the sled patrol in the
north that is more or less uh uh
maintaining our sovereignty in the
northeastern part of Greenland which is
very thinly populated. Uh so that's also
a very important role. And then we have
also planned to buy maritime patrol
aircraft which is probably going to be
the P8 Poseidon provided that will still
maintain friendly relations uh with the US.
US.
>> Well, I'm glad that you mentioned your
time on an Arctic patrol frigot. I'd
love for you to tell our viewers what is
it like patrolling that region.
Well, it's a very harsh uh environment
and I had to learn the hard way that
this is completely different from what I
knew. I'm a submariner by trade and I've
been sailing in internal Danish waters
before that. But this is a very can be a
very dangerous place to navigate because
all the the charts are not really uh
could say uh show exactly how things
are. So you need to have a lot of
experience to go around up there. And
then of course you have all the ice even
though we had global warming. There's
still a lot of ice up there. And for
instance on the east coast of Greenland
uh it's only accessible around two
months every year uh because of the ice
coming down from the Arctic.
>> Well, Commander, we thank you very much
for your time today.
>> You're welcome.
>> What's next on Donald Trump's world wish
list? According to researchers at the
Eurasia Group, America is in quote the
throws of a political revolution, making
that country lead their list of top
risks for 2026. Joining us now is Gerald
Buts, former principal secretary to
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and
current vice chair of the Eurasia Group.
Jerry, great to see you today.
>> Great to be here, Ben. Happy New Year to
you and your viewers.
>> Thank you very much. All right. Your
group does an annual list of top risks
and this year's issues relating to the
US or Donald Trump landed in five of
your top nine. Is that unusual? Did it
surprise you? Well, it's it's becoming
more and more usual, Ben, but it's
definitely new. When we started doing
this 20 years ago, it was mostly about
what risks were happening elsewhere in
the world that should caused uh North
Americanbased American and Canadian investors
investors
uh pause for concern. And more and more
it's become about what risks the United
States is generating that should cause
everybody concern especially here in Canada.
Canada.
>> All right. Well, let's dig in and start
with number one. Uh what you call the US
political revolution. What do you mean
by that? And why is it the top threat?
>> Well, it's a top threat because of the
dynamic I just described that we're
accustomed to having the United States
be a shock absorber of political risk,
not a generator of it. And that one
change in the architecture of geopolitics
geopolitics
uh changes everything. So that um the
United States can't be depended upon
anymore to solve problems elsewhere.
You've got half of the United States
that can't stand the other half of the
United States, and they each think the
other is a bigger threat than any
country or group outside of the United
States. And that's changed the way they
orient themselves toward allies and
adversaries alike around the world.
>> At number two is everything running on
electrons from artificial intelligence
to drones. Number three is the Dunroe
doctrine, flashing back to the Monroe
Doctrine, US supremacy over the Western
Hemisphere. Do you see the doctrine
going further in 2026?
>> Well, we've already seen it go further
in 2026. You know, I I we said in the
report that nobody would feel the
consequences of the the change in the
United States more acutely than Canada
and Canadians would, but the United
States quickly upped up the ante there
and I think there are probably 29
million Venezuelans that would disagree
with that characterization. Now, we
expect to see this uh this orientation
deepen in the United States because it's structural.
structural.
>> Number four is uh many European
countries being led by unpopular or weak
leaders with Washington rooting for
their collapse. Number five is Russia.
Number six is Trump's business
alliances. Tell us about that one.
Well, look, I mean, I think it's an open
secret in global circles these days that
the way to get ahead in the United
States is to help Donald Trump and his
immediate family and his immediate
associates get ahead very materially.
And that of course um u monkeys around
with a rules-based order. If we have a
international order that's based on
deals rather than rules, we've got a
very different world we're living in.
>> Yeah. I never thought we'd live in a
world where the enrichment of a
president in to the tune of billions of
dollars um would be normalized the way
it has. We just kind of accepted as
that's how it is now.
>> Well, some presidents uh for sure, but
not the United States president. And uh
that's the truly new thing here that the
United States is behaving a lot or its
government as behaving a lot more uh
like states we've accustomed we've grown
accustomed to seeing autocratic and uh
dictatorial states behave.
>> Yeah, I'm I'm used to living in a world
where where politicians make their money
after they leave office, but I guess
this is the new normal in 2026. Let's
move on to number seven.
>> Seven is China's deflationary spiral.
Eight is AI. Nine is close to Canada's
heart. Uh what what you call zombie
USMCA or the old NAFTA. Why Zombie?
Yeah. Well, it's a deal that's I know
close to your heart and your family's
heart, Ben, as your dad played such a
huge role in it. And we probably
wouldn't have had the uh the free trade
agreement, let alone the NAFTA agreement
without him. And I'm sad to say that
it's become a bit of a living dead
agreement where it ex still exists on
paper and uh the rules are there in
black and white but they aren't going to
be enforced because nobody the United
States is never again going to sign off
on an independent third party dispute
resolution mechanism which as you know
very well was the breaking point in the
agreement with uh the Bush
administration in the first place that
your your father, Prime Minister
Maloney, would have walked away from the
deal without it. And it's hard for me to
see a scenario in which Trump agrees to
it continuing.
>> Yeah, I remember dad talking about that
often, how essential it was to the deal,
how hard it was to get it over the line,
and without it, uh, we wouldn't have
had, uh, any free trade to speak of in
the way that we know it uh, today. What
do you think the likelihood is, Jerry,
of of some version of this deal being uh
moving past the finish line?
>> Well, there's nothing I'd like more in
2026 than to be proven wrong about this,
Ben, but I think the likelihood is low.
I think we'll end up with a kind of
annual um reertification of the deal, if
I could put it that way. And uh that's
largely because the deal that Trump
would want, Canada wouldn't want to sign
on to and it wouldn't be good for
Canadians. So I suspect it would be very
difficult for the prime minister and the
government to agree to it.
>> Yeah. And I I think most Canadians,
regardless of political stripes, agree
with the argument that no deal is better
than a bad deal. Um what do you think a
good deal would look like generally speaking?
speaking?
Well, I think uh a good deal would look
a lot like the current deal and it would
look a lot like the original deal and
it's been core to Donald Trump's
political project. People forget this
now because so much of his more recent
rhetoric has been about China. But if
you go back to the 2016 campaign, his
campaign, especially in the key states
and places like Michigan and Ohio and
Pennsylvania, was all about how the
Clintons had bartered away uh had given
away the jobs of middle class workers in
the steel and auto industry to Mexico
because of NAFTA and that he was the
president who was finally going to fix
that. Uh that's core to who he is. This
idea whether you believe it or not that
the middle class in the United States
was screwed by free trade and in
particular by the NAFTA agreement. So
it's hard for him to peel back on that.
>> Yeah. Well, I just wish he would
remember what he said after he signed
the last deal, which was it was the
greatest trade deal of all time.
>> Yeah, I was there.
>> But but he doesn't have that long a
memory on certain things. Hey, Jerry
Butch, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
much.
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