U.S. Foreign Policy: Because Who Needs Allies When You Can Just Buy Islands?
When The Hill frets that Greenland is 'feeling tremors' from Trump's Venezuela antics, one might wonder: where were their seismographs during the Bay of Pigs, or during the numerous U.S.-backed coups across Latin America? The 2019 article focuses on Trump's 'shocking move,' treating U.S. attempts to buy Greenland and destabilize Venezuela as disconnected, novel events. (Because negotiating a
nation's sovereignty like a used car lot is just standard practice, right?) The real shock isn't Trump's bluster, but the persistent American narrative that its interventionism is ever an isolated incident, rather than a pattern of resource extraction and regime change. From the United Fruit Company's influence in Central America to the orchestration of multiple coups against democratically
elected leaders (see: Chile 1973, Guatemala 1954), the U.S. has a century-long resume of treating sovereign nations as pawns. The 'tremors' Greenland felt weren't from Trump's singular decision, but from the tectonic plates of American imperialism shifting, as they always have.