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Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194

What Just Happened?

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Trial Balloon · Ep. 194: What Just Happened?

Is Greenland Next?

January 5, 2026 · 9:42 pm ET · Leave a Comment

The Atlantic: “Danish officials think they know how Donald Trump might seize Greenland. In a late-night Truth Social post, the president announces that the Danish territory is now an American ‘protectorate.’ Because neither Denmark nor its European allies possess the military force to prevent the United States from taking the island, they are powerless to resist Trump’s dubious claim.”

“And as the leading member of NATO claims the sovereign territory of another state, the alliance is paralyzed. Arguing that possession is nine-tenths of the law, Trump simply declares that Greenland now belongs to the United States.”

“This chain of events, which some Danish officials and security experts proposed to us in recent months, may have seemed faintly ridiculous as of last Friday. By the weekend—after the toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Trump’s ensuing insistence that the United States now ‘runs’ Venezuela—it seemed far less so.”

“For months, Danes have anxiously imagined an audacious move by the Trump administration to annex Greenland, whether by force, coercion, or an attempt to buy off the local population of about 56,000 people with the promise of cutting them in on future mining deals. Now those fears are spiking.”

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Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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