The American betrayal
This post is about geopolitics and Donald Trump, and basically a personal unstructred rant, so beware.
While the general sense of the American betrayal against its European allies has been evident basically since he was first elected in 2016, the most recent developments in his ever ongoing threats against Greenland, Denmark and the rest of Europe, is leaving no room for downplaying it or brushing it off as merely Trumpâs idiotic way of ânegotiatingâ. Many lines have been crossed several times and it has led to an increased feeling of bewilderment, anger, disappointment and disbelief for myself and many others here in Denmark and rest of Europe. How the current US government has betrayed over 80 years of hard fought goodwill and alliance with pissing all over it in just about a year, is so out of scale of anything and without any historic precedent.
The situation develops several times a day now, so I wonât bother with the details of the current conflict over Greenland, but how Trump is totally ignoring past alliances really hurts. Since WW2 the US has had almost free access to Greenland, to operate and build practically every base they need. In 1968 the Danish government even helped cover up the catastrophic nuclear aircraft. Danish soldiers have fought in American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to great losses, almost as big as the US relative to our population size. That Trump and Vance are calling us bad allies is so unnecessarily cruel and disrespectful to those who fought and died. Denmark have always had very strong ties to the US, and I personally donât condone all of what we have done for the US over the years. There are plenty of things to criticise with regards to involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it all comes down to the utter lack of basic respect and decency.
Having cross-atlantic alliances makes sense. It is mutual beneficial as we have shared interests. The US has acknowledged as much for 80 years. It is true that Denmark doesnât have the military capacity to defend Greenland in its entirety, and also unreasonable we should do so just because the US wants their security covered. This is why alliances exists, as it also benefits the US to have military bases in Europe. But Trump only sees winners and losers, as mutual benefits doesnât exist in his worldview.
In the end it isnât really about politics. I could respect, even in some way understand, that the US wanted to move in a more self-protective direction. That they wanted the rest of the NATO countries to do more and for Europe to have a greater defence capacity on their own. That could have been worked out diplomatically with some demands that within maybe a 10 year period, the US will cover x percent of military security in the arctics and the rest of NATO will cover y percent. That is both possible and reasonable. What isnât reasonable is how Trump acts like a total lunatic. How Vance has made it a clear goal to destroy the political unity in the EU. All without even the tiniest amount of basic human decency, respect for our shared history or diplomatic common sense.
The same seems to go for the rest of their politics. The cruelty is the point, it isnât about actually solving problems. It is impossible to work with a country so untrustworthy and unpredictable.
I grew up with being fascinated by the US, and of course a big consumer of American culture. We didnât agree with everything, and have always looked at their gun laws, view on abortions, lack of health care and racism with a good amount of disdain, but still with the general sense of Europe shared more values with America than not. I grew up after the Cold War and while 9/11 of course changed things, I have still lived 40 years mostly believing the world was moving in the right direction. That the global alliances with EU and UN, and shared economic dependency across the globe could hold off a third world war. I feel betrayed of that optimism and genuinely fear the worst for my kids future. With Trump we are moving in a direction with more cruelty and less empathy.
It is crazy how quickly that has turned around. I see more people looking towards China, and it is getting harder to see why we should share less values with them now with how things are going. At the least China seems to understand that stability is better than war, and that climate change isnât to be totally ignored. A stable partner is better than an unpredictable lunatic of a so called âallyâ. And I really hate myself that it has come to that, because there are for certain a mountain of issues with China. But right now, the US is the biggest threat. The only hope for Europe is to stand even more united with the European Union and insisting that democracy is still the best option for the future.
It will take at least a criminal NĂźrnberg process for the GOP, and decades worth of careful trust rebuilding for the US to come back in favour. It is not a sane country as things are now. People don't want to travel there anymore, don't want to study at American universities. Many are doing the best we can to move away from American products though of course it will take years to make an actual impact. The trust is gone.