How Embarrassing That Anyone Thinks Greenland Would Want To Be Part Of The US!

They have health care there. Why would they want ... this?

Dec 23, 2025

town on hill covered with snow — Photo by Visit Greenland on Unsplash

Once again — and probably because he needs a distraction from the latest Epstein Files drop — Donald Trump is back on his Greenland bullshit. He’s appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as a special envoy to go there and try to persuade them to give up the high standard of living to which they have become accustomed in order to provide the United States with national security. What a deal!

“We need Greenland for national protection. They have a very small population. And, I don’t know, they say ‘Denmark’ but Denmark has spent no money there, they have no military protection,” Trump said. “They say Denmark was there 300 years ago or something with a boat. Well, we were there with boats too, I’m sure.”

The United States is 249 years old, so probably not! But even so, I don’t know that “being there with boats” means that you own an entire country.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen issued a statement on Facebook saying that Trump’s latest overture made him “sad,” writing, “With words like that our country is reduced to a question of security and power. This is not how we see ourselves, and this is not how we in Greenland can or should be talked about.”

That seems fair!

On Monday, Landry got dressed up in camo (not at all threatening!) in order to tell the people of Louisiana about his very exciting new gig.

He explained:

The president called me and asked me if I would help my great Secretary of State Marco Rubio out, and he is doing a phenomenal job. And the president said, “You know what you went to Korea one time and came back with a steel mill, could you go to Greenland and talk to them about the opportunity of being a part of the United States?”
Why? Because no one besides the governor of Louisiana and maybe the governor Alaska has the ability to go there and talk to those people about that opportunity because as a Cajun, my family and the families in Louisiana have lived in this state for over 300 years. And we have lived under more flags than anyone living in the continental United States, but guess what? The flag that we ended up with is the greatest flag. Right, Winston?
And that’s the United States of America, because that’s a flag that stands for Liberty, opportunity, and security and it’s done well for us and all we’re going to do is go have us a great conversation with those folks in Greenland. They’re in the Western hemisphere, fits inside the Monroe Doctrine, and we’re gonna bring him some great Cajun food.

Now, look. Cajun food is delicious. I, personally, would take red beans and rice and beignets any day of the week over polar bear meat, which it turns out is a thing (not to yuck anyone’s yum — I’m just a recovering picky eater and polar bear would be a very big step). That is a lovely gift and I am sure the people of Greenland would appreciate that. Especially if it involves some fresh green vegetables, which are not easy to get there. Or the apple pies from Popeye’s, which are made of magic and sunshine.

What I don’t think they would appreciate, however, would be literally anything else about this visit. The overwhelming majority of Greenlanders do not want to join the United States. One poll found that 85 percent did not want to, nine percent were undecided and only six percent wanted to. Forty-five percent saw Trump’s interest as a threat. Which, you know, it is. He’s refused to rule out taking the land by force, despite the fact that we haven’t taken a territory by force since the 1890s (Hawaii and the Philippines), and that kind of thing is looked on pretty disfavorably these days — especially considering that Greenland is a territory of Denmark, a NATO ally.

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Perhaps the saddest part of all of this is that anyone actually thinks Greenland would want to join the United States to begin with. The people of Greenland have free-at-the-point-of-use universal health care, free higher education, five weeks of paid leave a year, parental leave, subsidized child care, subsidized in-home care for the elderly, and all of the other things that civilized nations have. They have a ban on all handguns and semi/fully automatic weapons, which is probably why they haven’t had a major mass shooting since 1990.

In what world would they want to give that up in order to give the United States more power and leverage against the Chinese? What is it that they’d gain? At-will employment? The right to worry every day that they’re going to be fired for no reason? Health insurance companies? More shootings? That seems unpleasant. Who (besides half of America) wants to live that way?

It’s also fairly bananas that anyone would send Jeff Landry, who literally wanted to withhold funds from New Orleans and other cities to repair their decaying water infrastructure unless they agreed to prosecute women who had abortions. Abortion is legal in Greenland and I highly doubt the people living there want to do business with someone who would pull something like that. Not to mention the fact that Louisiana was, just recently, rated the worst-off state in the nation by US News and World Report.

Frankly, Lousiana would probably be better off now if they’d stuck with the French. At least they’d have health care.

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