Larry Floersch
The incoming administration recently floated some interesting proposals for reorganizing world maps.
One of those proposals is a leftover: The United States should purchase, or seize, Greenland from Denmark. You may remember I spoke to this proposal in a column in 2019 when it was first suggested.
As I noted back then, Greenland has been the focus of real estate scams dating back to the tenth century, when the Icelander Erik Thorvaldson, aka Erik the Red (some say named for his red helmet with the letters “GGS” across the front for “Gjør Grønland Storslagent”), was exiled to Greenland for three years for killing a guy named Eyiolf the Foul. Erik would have gotten a stiffer sentence, but Eyiolf was really foul and Erik had great lawyers.
On his return to Iceland, Erik spoke of the wonderful place he visited called “Groenland” and convinced 25 boatloads of Icelanders to follow him back. Although Erik was the “Paramount Chieftain of Greenland” for 20 years, the experiment ultimately failed, and by the end of the “Little Ice Age” in the 15th century the settlement was gone.
Erik, of course, had lied, which seems to be a trait of some, but certainly not all, real estate developers. Greenland wasn’t green. Back in Erik’s day, it was covered in ice over two miles thick. It still is, even though that ice is melting rapidly because of global warming.
Greenland has no major ports or even cities, and the U.S. already owns Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) in its far northwest corner, which uses its massive radar system to keep an eye on military affairs in the Arctic.
I doubt there is even a decent place to build a golf course and country club in Greenland. But in the eyes of some, Greenland has become absolutely essential to the security of the United States because the ice is melting, creating more open water in the Arctic Ocean and possibly exposing deposits of rare minerals.
It must be an interesting dilemma for those who do not believe in global warming to have to argue that we need Greenland because the ice is melting. And is Greenland essential to U.S. security or is this just another real estate scam like The Erik’s?
Also essential to U.S. security, apparently, is Canada. The incoming administration has made a proposal to annex Canada as the 51st state.
As we know, about 90% of Canadians reside within 100 miles of the U.S. border, where they live with the fervent hope that someday they’ll be able to throw off the shackles of universal health care and pay three times more for their prescription drugs in exchange for unfettered access to Myrtle Beach in January.
But, really, would adding Canada to the United States make us great again? Canadians tend to be quiet, polite, apologetic, and to think more progressively. That does not seem to square with the way the incoming administration operates.
And think what annexation could do to politics in the U.S. With a population about the same as California (40 million), the state of Canada would be entitled to roughly 52 representatives in the U.S. House. Even many Conservatives in Canada support more gun control and pro-choice policies, so how would absorbing those 52 seats into the fixed total of 435 seats (as established by the Reapportionment Act of 1929) affect the balance of power in the House?
And what about the tariffs. I’m no expert here, but I don’t think we can impose tariffs on a state in the union. That would be like directly taxing ourselves instead of having businesses in foreign countries quietly pass the costs of tariffs along to us as price increases.
The incoming administration has also suggested the United States annex Mexico. This would certainly eliminate the need to complete “The Wall,” which would be great for Mexico, since they have been paying for it all along. Right?
No tariffs on the state of Mexico, so no higher prices on cars, televisions, and refrigerators. That would be a boon for American consumers, unless, of course, prices rise because the workers in those Mexican factories become subject to federal minimum wage laws, which could be a boon to them.
The major victim of the annexation of Mexico, it seems to me, would be a preeminent policy proposal of the incoming administration, which is to launch the largest deportation program of illegal immigrants in American history “on Day 1.” If Mexico is annexed, there will be nowhere to deport illegal immigrants who came from Mexico, because we will be sending them back to the United States. In fact, they could not even be considered immigrants.
And think about the language problems! We already have large portions of the citizenry who speak Spanish. Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico, for example, has been futilely pushing the idea of statehood for decades. If we annex Mexico, we will be significantly increasing the Spanish-speaking population, which might give Puerto Rico a shot at becoming a state. With Canada, we will be adding a large group of folks who are adamant about speaking French, and with Greenland we will have a group that speaks Kalaallisut, for which Berlitz apparently does not even offer a phrasebook!
I think the incoming administration has a lot more analysis to do here.
