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Lawfare. An arm of Brookings. Scott Anderson of the Brookings Institute used Lawfaire to explain why Trump can’t buy Greenland. American interest in owning Greenland is not altogether absurd. Anderson notes Greenland’s natural resources. He could have mentioned that, at a time of global warming, access to those natural resources is easier. He considers Greenland’s access to Russia and to the “increasingly important Arctic Region.” He could have said that global warming is making the Arctic more important.
Anderson explains we are not living in the nineteenth century or, even, the twentieth. Residents of territories have a say in how they are governed and who will govern them. The UN charter establishes principles of self-determination. Based on those principles, decolonization started in the 1960s – even for places that remain as colonies of a sort.
Trump can’t just buy. Greenlanders get to choose. Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland is absurd because he ignores the people who live in Greenland.