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8 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITIONAfter news leaked last week that Presi-
dent Trump had expressed interest in
acquiring Greenland from Denmark,
his critics predictably derided him as
crazy. But once again, the president is
crazy like a fox. The acquisition of
Greenland would secure vital strategic
interests for the United States, eco-
nomically benefit both us and Green-
landers, and would be in keeping with
American — and Danish — diplomatic
traditions.
Strategically positioned in the Arctic
Circle, Greenland has long attracted
the attention of American policymak-
ers. As far back as 1867, Secretary of
State William Seward explored the
acquisition of Greenland around the
time that he negotiated the purchase of
Alaska from the Russians. I myself
raised the prospect of acquiring Green-
land with the Danish ambassador just
last year.
In 1946, the Truman administration
offered $100 million to Denmark to
acquire Greenland, arguing that the
island was “indispensable to the safety
of the United States” in confronting thegrowing Soviet threat, just as it had
been in World War II when American
forces used bases in Greenland to
deter Nazi aggression. While the deal
didn’t go through, we kept troops on
the island throughout the Cold War.
Today, the Air Force’s 21st Space Wing
is stationed at Thule Air Base in west-
ern Greenland to support our ballistic-
missile defenses
and space missions.
America is not the
only nation to recog-
nize Greenland’s
strategic signifi-
cance. Intent on
securing a foothold
in the Arctic and
North America,
China attempted in
2016 to purchase an
old American naval
base in Greenland, a move the Danish
government prevented.
Two years later, China was back at it,
attempting to build three airports on the
island, which failed only after intense
lobbying of the Danes by the Trump
administration.
Beijing understands not only Green-
land’s geographic importance but also
its economic potential. Greenland is
rich in a wide array of mineral deposits,including rare-earth minerals — re-
sources critical to our high-tech and
defense industries. China currently
dominates the market in these minerals
and has threatened to withhold them
from us to gain leverage in trade nego-
tiations. Greenland also possesses
untold reserves of oil and natural gas.
An agreement to transfer Green-
land’s sovereignty must also serve the
interests of our good friends, the
Danes, and the 56,000 Greenlanders as
well. Their considerations ought to
include the fact that despite Green-
land’s long-term potential, a lack of
infrastructure and financing still ham-
string the island’s economy today.
Greenland’s economy is less than one-
tenth of Vermont’s, America’s smallest
state economy. Every year, Denmark
transfers $670 million in subsidies to
support the island.
As the world’s largest economy, the
United States could more easily as-
sume support for Greenland’s commu-
nities while investing substantially in
its future. The transfer of Greenland’s
sovereignty would alleviate a signifi-
cant financial burden on the Danish
people while expanding opportunities
for Greenlanders. Just look at what
American sovereignty has meant to
Alaskans compared with conditions inSiberia under Russian control.
Despite the historical ignorance of
the president’s critics, the negotiated
acquisition of sovereignty is a long-
standing and perfectly legitimate tool
of statecraft, particularly in the Ameri-
can tradition. More than one-third of
America’s territory was purchased
from Spain (Florida), France (the
Louisiana Purchase), Mexico (the
Gadsden Purchase) and Russia
(Alaska).
Indeed, Washington and Copenhagen
have engaged in exactly this kind of
transaction. In 1917, President Wood-
row Wilson — the great champion of
self-determination — paid $25 million
to purchase the Danish West Indies,
which have ever since been known as
the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Who today believes the acquisition of
Alaska was “Seward’s folly”? On the
contrary, it has been a great blessing to
Alaskans and all Americans. Our nation
has much to gain, as do the Danes and
Greenlanders. While there are short-
term obstacles, the same benefits could
apply for Greenland today — and the
manifest logic of this idea means that
its consideration is here to stay.TOM COTTONis a Republican senator
from Arkansas.Trump isn’t
the only one
to recognize
the country’s
strategic
importance.
Beijing does,
too.JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESAmerica should buy Greenland
Tom Cotton
The “very stable genius” in the Oval
Office is, in fact, extremely unstable, in
word and deed. That’s not a psycholog-
ical diagnosis, although you can make
that case too. It’s just a straightfor-
ward description of his behavior. And
his instability is starting to have seri-
ous economic consequences.
To see what I mean about Trump’s
behavior, just consider his moves on
China trade over the past month,
which have been so erratic that even
those of us who follow this stuff profes-
sionally have been having a hard time
keeping track.
First, Trump unexpectedly an-
nounced plans to greatly expand the
range of Chinese goods subject to
tariffs. Then he had his officials declare
China a currency manipulator — which
happens to be one of the few economic
sins of which the Chinese are innocent.
Then, perhaps fearing the political
fallout from the higher prices of many
consumer goods from China during the
holiday season, which would result
from the tariff hikes, he postponed —
but didn’t cancel — them.
Wait, there’s more. China, predict-
ably, responded to the new United
States tariffs with new tariffs on U.S.
imports. Trump, apparently enraged,
declared that he would raise his tariffs
even higher, and declared that he was
ordering U.S. companies to wind down
their business in China (which is not
something he has the legal authority to
do). But at the Group of 7 summit in
Biarritz he suggested that he was
having “second thoughts,” only to havethe White House declare that he actu-
ally wished he had raised tariffs even
more.
And we’re not quite done. On Mon-
day Trump said that the Chinese had
called to indicate a desire to resume
trade talks. But there was no confirma-
tion from the Chinese, and Trump has
been a notably unreliable narrator of
what’s going on in international meet-
ings. For example, he made the highly
improbable claim that “World Lead-
ers” (his capitalization) were asking
him, “Why does the American media
hate your Country so much?”
To repeat, all of this has happened
just this month. Now imagine yourself
as a business leader trying to make
decisions amid this Trumpian chaos.
The truth is that protectionism gets
something of an excessively bad rap.
Tariffs are taxes on
consumers, and
they tend to make
the economy poorer
and less efficient.
But even high
tariffs don’t neces-
sarily hurt employ-
ment, as long they’re stable and pre-
dictable: the jobs lost in industries that
either rely on imported inputs or de-
pend on access to foreign markets can
be offset by job gains in industries that
compete with imports.
History is, in fact, full of examples of
economies that combined high tariffs
with more or less full employment:
America in the 1920s, Britain in the
1950s and more.
But unstable, unpredictable trade
policy is very different. If your busi-
ness depends on a smoothly function-
ing global economy, Trump’s tantrums
suggest that you should postpone your
investment plans; after all, you may be
about to lose access to your export
markets, your supply chain or both. It’s
also, though, not a good time to invest
in import-competing businesses; for all
you know, Trump will eventually back
down on his threats. So everythinggets put on hold — and the economy
suffers.
One question you might ask is why
Trumpian trade uncertainty is looming
so much larger now than it did during
the administration’s first two years.
Part of the answer, I think, is that until
fairly recently most analysts expected
the U.S.-China trade conflict to be
resolved with minimal disruption. You
may recall that after denouncing Nafta
as the worst trade deal ever made,
Trump essentially surrendered and
declared victory, settling for a new deal
almost indistinguishable from the old
one. Most economic newsletters I get
predicted a similar outcome for the
U.S. and China.
At the same time, the U.S. economy
is slowing as the brief sugar high from
the 2017 tax cut wears off. Another
leader might engage in some self-
reflection. Trump being Trump, he’s
blaming others and lashing out. He has
declared both Jerome Powell, chair-
man of the Federal Reserve Board, and
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, enemies. As
it turns out, however, there’s nothingmuch he can do to bully the Fed, but
the quirks of U.S. trade law do allow
him to slap new tariffs on China.
Of course, Trump’s trade belliger-
ence is itself contributing to the eco-
nomic slowdown. So there’s an obvious
possibility for a vicious circle. The
economy weakens; a flailing Trump
lashes out at China, and possibly oth-
ers (Europe may be next); this further
weakens the economy; and so on.
At that point you might expect an
intervention from the grown-ups in the
room — but there aren’t any. In any
other administration Treasury Secre-
tary Steven Mnuchin, a.k.a. the Lego
Batman guy, would be considered a
ridiculous figure; these days, however,
he’s as close as we get to a voice of
economic rationality. But whenever he
tries to talk sense, as he apparently did
over the issue of Chinese currency
manipulation, he gets overruled.
Protectionism is bad; erratic protec-
tionism, imposed by an unstable leader
with an insecure ego, is worse. But
that’s what we’ll have as long as
Trump remains in office.The president and the art of the flail
Protectionism
is worse when
it’s erratic and
unpredictable.Paul Krugman
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMESopinion
One of the few concrete pledges to come out of the
Group of 7 summit in Biarritz, on France’s Atlantic
coast, was an aid package of $20 million for Brazil and
its neighbors in the Amazon basin to fight fires raging
through the rainforest. The sum was a trifle, given the
scale of the fires and the size of the economies of the
donors (the charity of the actor Leonardo DiCaprio
separately pledged $5 million), but it was meant to
highlight a more ambitious program of protection and
reforestation in the works.
More noteworthy than the token action was the fact
that President Trump skipped the session at which it
was taken, which happened to be devoted to climate,
oceans and biodiversity. Even more noteworthy was
that neither President Emmanuel Macron of France,
the convener of this year’s summit and champion of
action on the Amazon fires, nor hardly anyone else
seemed to find this particularly disturbing.
In fact, they seemed relieved. Other American offi-
cials were there, said Mr. Macron, and it had never
been his goal to challenge Mr. Trump’s climate deni-
alism. In fact, he said he and the American president
had a “long, rich and totally positive” discussion on the
Amazon fires. Maybe they did, but by now Mr. Macron
should know better than most that the Trump who likes
being agreeable face to face can quickly turn mean at a
distance.
That, in fact, was the real theme of the Biarritz sum-
mit in the third year of the Trump presidency, as de-
scribed by Peter Baker of The Times: “Rule 1 at the G
Meeting? Don’t Get You-Know-Who Mad.” Mr. Macron
cautiously avoided trying to draft a joint communiqué,
perhaps recalling how Mr. Trump pulled his signature
off the one reached last year in Canada in a tantrum
over something Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Can-
ada said.
Still, there were plenty of hazards at this summit.
One was Mr. Trump’s keenness to get his pal Vladimir
Putin back into the Group of 7, from which he was ex-
pelled over Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014. Mr.
Trump blames Mr. Obama for expelling Mr. Putin, and
said he “certainly” would explore inviting him to next
year’s summit meeting, which the United States is
hosting, perhaps at Mr. Trump’s Doral golf resort near
Miami. Mr. Trump also created some unease with see-
saw statements on the tariff war with China, but the
assembled heads of government bent over backward
not to provoke his ire.
Boris Johnson, the disheveled newly installed prime
minister of Britain who normally never balks at speak-
ing his mind, provided the best example of Trump-fear.
On the eve of the summit, Mr. Johnson strongly criti-
cized those who support tariffs — read Mr. Trump. But
in Biarritz, in front of cameras alongside the president,
Mr. Johnson offered only gentle criticism of Mr.
Trump’s belligerent trade policies, “just to register a
faint, sheeplike note of our view on the trade war.”
And so it went. No tantrum, like the one Mr. Trump
recently threw over Denmark’s refusal to sell him
Greenland.
On the contrary, his tweets suggested he felt himself
among kindred spirits. “The question I was asked most
today by fellow World Leaders, who think the USA is
doing so well and is stronger than ever before, happens
to be, ‘Mr. President, why does the American media
hate your Country so much? Why are they rooting for
it to fail?’”
Unless one of the World Leaders confesses to saying
this, it is probably another lie. The pity of the entire
Group of 7 show was that it was part of a new normal
in which the world’s major liberal democracies basical-
ly accept that they are out of sync with the president of
the nation that should be leading their efforts to man-
age the world and its resources wisely and responsibly,
but isn’t.
There may be no consensus on just how much dam-
age is being done by the fires raging through the Ama-
zon basin. But when countless fires are ravaging one of
the world’s greatest rain forests, the threat is global.
The president of the United States should be standing
with Mr. Macron and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel in demanding that the world address it.
Yet Mr. Trump’s decision to skip the meeting on the
environment was treated as normal. It was left to the
United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, to
express the forlorn hope that the American people
would demonstrate the commitment to fighting climate
change that was absent from their president.
There is no point in trying to change Mr. Trump’s
mind about joining in the fight on climate change —
“You can’t rewrite the past,” as Mr. Macron put it. Just
don’t get him mad.The leaders
of the major
economies
tiptoed
around the
irascible and
unpredictable
American
president.GROUP OF 7, MINUS TRUMP
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