America just can't let the whole Greenland thing go.
More than a week after reports indicated President Trump was thinking of putting in an offer for Greenland, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has authored a New York Times op-ed arguing why he should do it. The idea that many have lambasted doesn't make Trump "crazy" at all, Cotton writes — it makes him "crazy like a fox."
Cotton delivers a history-laden argument for buying Greenland in the Times, saying that Secretary of State William Seward — the man who negotiated America's purchase of Alaska in 1867 — thought about buying Greenland as well. Former President Harry Truman went so far as to offer Denmark $100 million for Greenland. And just last year, Cotton says he "raised the prospect of acquiring Greenland with the Danish ambassador just last year."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
Cotton then goes on to make an economic and militarily strategic case for buying Greenland, saying the island "possesses untold reserves of oil and natural gas." But this purchase "must also serve the interests of our good friends, the Danes, and the 56,000 Greenlanders," Cotton continues, and says "as the world's largest economy," the U.S. could easily ensure that happens. And if the U.S. doesn't take action, Cotton says he thinks Chins might.
Cotton's op-ed follows one by S. Enders Wimbush published Sunday in The Wall Street Journal arguing for a Greenland acquisition. Read all of Cotton's op-ed at The New York Times, and find Matthew Walther of The Week's reasoning for buying the island here.
