US President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 has emboldened him to proceed with the annexation of Greenland, a Danish-owned, self-governed territory, spelling the effective end of NATO and furthering Russia’s war aims in Ukraine, experts tell Al Jazeera.
“The move on Venezuela illustrates the Trump administration’s determination to dominate the Western Hemisphere – of which Greenland geographically is a part,” said Anna Wieslander, Northern Europe director for the Atlantic Council, a think tank.
“If the United States decides to attack another NATO country, then everything would stop – that includes NATO and therefore post-World War II security,” Frederiksen said.
“The pandering to Trump has been an element of our strategy over the last year, leaving observers hoping, but not entirely trusting, that another element of the strategy is preparing urgently for the final rupture with the United States,” Giles said.
Giles told Al Jazeera that Europe’s best option was to place a military deterrent on Greenland now, believing that putting allied troops in the Baltic States and Poland after 2017 deterred a Russian attack there.
What experrs? American experts?
They’re kind of forgetting the big elephant in the room that is the fact a lot of US foreign debt is owned by Japan and China, with the majority of the rest of it being held by countries that will be very very pissed off with this move.
If trump is stupid enough to pull the trigger, and those countries decide that a potential physical war is becoming inevitable, they’ll for sure dump all of that debt, all at once; killing the US economy and it’s ability to make war. War needs fuel. Despite Venzuela, Trump won’t have enough of it once his economy tanks.
Yeah I think the ordering on that is China, Japan, UK, Canada in terms of the countries that hold US bonds.
A diplomatic delegation came to Canada recently and then Mark Carney went to China. Maybe just coincidence, or maybe not.
Tanking the bonds is essentially the economic equivalent of a nuke. You don’t want to use it because there will be fallout which isn’t good for anyone. But the US actually using military force on Greenland would be a circumstance where you might push the button on that. China has some business interests in Greenland, and generally the US just invading places based solely on the whims of a deranged old man is worse for everyone than the economic fallout from tanking the bonds.
Here’s a recent article on the chances the USD continues as the world’s reserve currency.
Ps it’s not looking great.
https://www.ftadviser.com/content/5cbf339b-7c4d-464b-8c2a-0c7409e515a0
Archive link
this fills my heart with joy
Money would be a problem but not the worst problem, all of manufacturing and materials come from China and the remaining single digit percent is in Europe, if the US pisses both they wont be able to manufacture war even if they haf all of the money
Europe should prepare to tell Trump to go fuck himself.
What if I told you that was literally part of the plan? The groundwork for looking the USD was already in project 2025 and the dark enlightenment bullshit the tech feudalists masturbate to requires the balkanization of the US, and pulling a smash and grab on the USD will get us there within ten years. And if Trump makes it to next January they can kill him and we get ten years of “legitimate” Vance and by then it’s well and truly over.
If there’s a war, and the US is cut off due to international sanctions, they’ll have to ship the oil all the way north, by ship, rail, or road, all of which would be VERY susceptible to attacks and sabotage.
We have more oil than we need already in the US.
We don’t have rare earth or battery materials manufacturing/extraction anywhere near the scale needed for a real war though.
But also Trump and Hegseth are fucking morons who’s wouldn’t smell a strategy if it took a shit on their faces.
And if it comes to strategic dumping of US bonds, on one side you have Mark Carney, a former central bank governor, and on the other Donald Trump, who played a successful businessman on television.
And if by ship, they’re likely going to be straining the Navy between ports. Be a shame if something breaks too as we have less dock space available for repair than we did when we laid those keels.
He’s also talking about operations in several other countries, and if he’s talking about a few, he’s thinking about a bunch more. He doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not a good idea to spread your forces and resources over multiple battlefronts.
He seems to think that the military is infinite, that he can just throw money at it and it can do anything. He’s talking about a $1.5 TRILLION military budget (who is paying for that?), and he’s going to need a LOT more personnel. That means at some point, he is going to demand a draft, especially if unemployment gets too high. It is already at its highest point since 2020.
America First used to mean we stay out of everywhere else, and concentrate on America, but Trump’s version means America gets first dibs on everything, and if you don’t want to play that game, we’ll just take what we want.
That is a gain for the US, not a loss. No interest payments on the loans they’ve made, and no need to pay off the principal. Great!
The debt doesn’t “go away”, the countries sell it on the market, causing the price of us bonds to drop. That causes the yield (what it costs the us to service the debt) to go up. Borrowing becomes more expensive. Repaying debt or borrowing more to pay interest becomes even more expensive for the us.
Yes. This I agree. But the current administration has shown it is willing to ignore future consequences.
Higher yields are irrelevant if the project 2025 goal is to “Abolish the Federal Reserve” page 768
Those are not some remote future consequences, the downfall would be quite immediate
Less immediate than war with the EU or China.
You are forgetting one thing: no more possibility of selling US debt. And currently the US debt is above 100% GDP.
Yes. No new debt sold abroad. But also no need to raise debt to pay off existing debt.
Also rasing more debt is a future problem. Does this administration care about the long term? No.
I don’t think you understand how inflation works…
Debt cancelling is a deflationary action. It reduces the money supply.
Dumping their bonds into the market isn’t cancelling their debt. Its making all that debt available for OTHERS to buy. Supply goes up, value goes down.
In other words, if all of the US debt was out up for sale at the same time, is value of the US dollar would crater.
Supply is the same unless debt is cancelled. A weaker dollar makes it easier to pay interest.
"If you owe foreign banks $100, that’s your problem. If you owe foreign banks $100 trillion that’s the foreign bank’s problem.”
That’s not how markets work.
But you’re clearly a troll just being intentionally obtuse for shits and giggles. It’s on me for not having realised it earlier.
Have a good day.
If you think correcting someone’s macro economic misunderstandings is trolling then you will be meeting many more trolls.
I’ll trust the economists on this one. Honestly should have just done this from the beginning rather than trying to explain things.
source - https://www.investingdaily.com/137830/what-it-means-when-the-world-dumps-u-s-debt/
Not cancelling, selling.
A dollar bill is debt that the govt owes to you. A bond is similar, just a bit different.
The US will still owe, just to different entities, but its figurative credit score will plummet at the same time it’s in a debt spiral.
But let’s make it simpler. Most of the world’s USD is not in the US, but in cash reserves abroad. They hold it like gold.
What happens if the big players sell? It’s already happening a bit, look at EURUSD and gold prices.
Yes. This is Trumps goal. Make foreign goods super expensive for consumers and manufacturers. Exactly what a Tariff does.
They are isolationists. They don’t want debt held overseas.
This would make all goods more expensive, as it would directly devalue the USD. It wouldn’t make people buy local, it would just make them buy less.
It’s not what a tariff does, because that only applies to foreign imports.
Under both, local products become cheaper than foreign.
Not really. If the USD loses value, your neighbour will sell their goods to me for EUR because it will be worth more.
It will be like everyone in the US got a pay cut. It’s a demand side effect, not like a tariff, and it’s uniform, not like a tariff.
It’s inflation after all.