Friday, May 28, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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A recent reminder that sanity has returned to the White House came from Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Greenland last week, where he offered assurance that the Biden administration didn’t share the previous president’s interest in purchasing the vast island.
Blinken deserves credit for handling the visit with professional tact and with a perfectly straight face, considering it was the diplomatic equivalent of a party host making day-after calls to appease guests over the antics of a drunken buffoon who had crashed the gathering.
But in all seriousness, the visit was a nice step forward.
Blinken’s purpose was to deliver a message of solidarity, aimed at repairing damage from the Trump administration’s delusional notions about purchasing the country. The idea of the United States buying a country that wasn’t for sale may have been a punchline to most of the world, but it definitely wasn’t to Greenland. The island’s citizens were justifiably offended at the proposed hostile takeover, which had everything to do with America’s interests and nothing to do with the well-being of Greenlanders. The Trump administration openly acknowledged it was acting in the name of strategic defense interests and was after the potential oil and mineral resources that may lie beneath Greenland’s melting ice sheet.
More damaging yet, then-President Donald Trump doubled down on the disrespect when, after Greenland rejected his idea, he petulantly canceled a state visit to Denmark, of which Greenland is a territory.
“You don’t talk to the United States that way, at least under me,” he added.
Tough talk, but later the adults in the administration quietly did some damage-control work by providing $12 million in economic development funding to Greenland and opening a consulate there. Still, the damage was done.
No such clean-up work will be needed after Blinken’s visit. To his credit, he didn’t focus on the past four years but instead looked ahead, saying the U.S. was looking to build stronger ties to Nordic nations to help address climate change, push back against Russia’s growing military presence in the Arctic and counter China’s growing economic influence in the region.
“What was important about coming here today was to demonstrate that the way we see the relationship is a partnership,” Blinken said during the visit. “We have shared interests, we have shared values, at a time when the world is ever more complicated and challenging.”
Those words hit home with Greenland’s leaders, who said they were honored by the visit and once again felt respected by the U.S.
That’s refreshing to hear. In one regard, Trump wasn’t wrong — Greenland is an important factor in protecting the national interests of the U.S. It’s the home of the U.S. military’s northernmost base, a key installation for missile warnings and space surveillance, and its geographic location at the intersection of the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean makes it a critical point from which to guard against Russian incursion.
The alarming glacial melt in Greenland also is a significant factor in sea-level rise, which is already spurring human migrations that are heightening geopolitical tensions. In partnering with Greenland and other nations to support efforts to curb global warming, the U.S. is taking a step in protecting our national interests.
But that’s how it’s done — by partnering, not by treating an ally like a commodity to be exploited, or suggesting that no one has the right to criticize the U.S.
