Trump's Threat of Attack on Greenland Was Always Just Negotiation Tool, Geopolitical Analyst Says

President Trump is calling off planned tariffs on European nations over Greenland. And he says he's reached the framework of a possible deal with NATO over Greenland's future. Joining us for analysis is geopolitical analyst Rod Martin. Good to have you with us this morning. Rod, first of all, your reaction to the latest? Well, my first reaction is that I just can't imagine where all these media people have been for the last 10 years. Donald Trump always does this. He always puts out maximal demands. He always refuses to take any options off the table. And that's how he starts every negotiation, every single time. We've seen this over and over again. There was never any possibility that Donald Trump was going to invade Greenland. The absurdity is off the chart. It's like doing the Maduro raid on Santa Claus. It's just silly. And yet, the predictable pundit class went nuts, absolutely bought it, hook, line, and sinker. And so they made this a big deal. And the truth is, that was always the plan, because the Europeans see this as a settled matter. It's inertia. They can't break out of it. The idea that an American president would actually do something concrete to change the status quo is just beyond them. And Donald Trump shook them into giving him their attention. So that's what's happened here. And that's what's happened with the tariffs. He didn't really intend to hit them with the tariffs, either. He wanted to hit them over the head, going into Davos, enough that they would actually sit down in a room and talk. It looks like there is the start of talks and some kind of deal taking shape. But now that he has officially taken off the table the idea of a physical invasion or assault, how much leverage do you think he really has? Well, he has an incredible amount. And he did a brilliant job of explicating that at Davos. This was a master class. And it was also a bit of tough love. You know, Donald Trump is saying the hard truths. Europe has imported an enormous number of Muslim military-aged men into its borders, which is changing the character of those nations. Europe is also on a track of electing socialists like Keir Starmer, who is in the process of giving away the Chagos Islands. You say, well, where the heck are the Chagos Islands? Well, they're in the Indian Ocean, and they host the most important U.S. base in the entire region, Diego Garcia. The Chagossians don't want it transferred to Mauritius. Mauritius is in the orbit of communist China. So we're effectively, in Starmer's case, paying a Chinese satellite to take over an American base. This is just insane. So when Trump looks forward not four years, but 40, he understands that Greenland could easily fall into China's orbit in the same way as Diego Garcia. That is not acceptable. Diego Garcia is halfway around the world. Greenland is next door. It is essential to hemispheric defense. So these guys have to sit down and talk, and we have to get to something that's satisfactory, that's permanent, and that can't be undone the way Keir Starmer just undid our situation in the Chagos. So let's dig into what makes Greenland unique, especially in regards to China and Russia. It seems to be something that European leaders are not as concerned about, as you mentioned, more broadly, perhaps. But why do you think, for example, House Speaker Mike Johnson was telling the U.K. parliament the U.S. is focused on countering security threats from China and Russia, especially in strategic areas such as the Arctic. Why does he need to kind of hone in on that message? And what do they really need to get about the threat from China and Russia that they might not be getting? Well, the Europeans aren't paying this any attention, or at least they weren't until the last 30 days. It's just absurd. But if you're the United States and you're picking up over 70 percent of the bill to defend NATO, as we have been doing for decades, it matters a heck of a lot. Greenland is the piece of real estate over which most Soviet-era and now Russian-era ICBMs would fly to get to the United States. It's essential for his Golden Dome missile defense program. It's also essential as the guard gate for waterways that are beginning to open up in the Arctic, either because of global warming or because of nuclear icebreakers really makes no difference. It's also the guardian of the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap through which Soviet and now Russian submarines would have to flow, just as German U-boats did during World War II, to threaten us in the North Atlantic. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for heaven's sake. Guarding the North Atlantic is the whole idea. And Trump understands this. And he downplayed the rare earths and the natural gas and the oil, but the truth is those matter, too, and they need to be developed because they're a friendly resource for the entire Western alliance. Now, in related news, China's population numbers came out recently and they're really getting decimated. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping, the regime's leader, is trying to position himself as a kind of stable international partner, alternative to President Trump. How much do you think he can pull this off in regards to European leaders perhaps being bought in in some ways to their dependence on China currently? Well, he's going to try. I mean, he needs alternate markets for China's export-driven economy, and he needs Europe to be that because there isn't any other game in town. I saw a map yesterday from some Internet site that showed that the U.S. economy is the same size as that of nearly the entire rest of the world combined, except China, Japan, Europe. So that being the case, they need to be able to diversify away from us. They're going to do everything they can to achieve that, but the truth is they really can't. The entire Chinese economy is driven by exports. These things are really determined at the margin. They can't lose what they have here. So Trump kind of has Xi in a box. All the bluster we heard in the first half of last year really came to nothing. And we're getting toward a trade deal that's working. Scott Besant said yesterday that the Chinese are actually holding up their end of the bargain that we have so far, which is remarkable. That's never happened before. And the truth of the matter is that the Venezuela operation and now a Greenland deal actually put China back on its heels in a way where it's probably going to have to play ball a little bit more. Add to that the largest ever arms deal in the history of Taiwan-U.S. relations, and they really are going to have to play nice. Great to hear your insights this morning. Thank you so much for your time, Rod Martin. And you.