A New York Times opinion columnist delivered a dire plea to world leaders on Wednesday night as President Donald Trump announced “the ultimate long-term deal” on Greenlandas he fantasizes about seizing the island.
In a stunning reversal, Trump backed off his Greenland power grab at Davos, for now, but not before sending European leaders into full panic mode.
“Fortunately, the shock of Trump’s Greenland demands may finally be leading world leaders to awaken to the American threat. (How weird even to type that!)” wrote Nicholas Kristof.
Trump posted a map of the U.S. casually annexing Greenland, Canada, and Venezuela, as Canadian military planners have begun gaming hypothetical guerrilla warfare tactics for an American invasion.
Kristof noted that European leaders are starting to recognize that appeasement is not the answer, with Polish, French and Belgian leaders speaking out.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever bluntly declared: “Being a happy vassal is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else.” Poland’s Donald Tusk added, “Appeasement means no results, only humiliation.” France’s Macron equated Trump to Putin himself, drawing a line in the sand.
“The dangers of appeasement should, of course, have been fully absorbed by Europeans in the 1930s. As Winston Churchill warned Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938: ‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war,’” wrote Kristof.
The columnist urged Europe to get a backbone and respond to Trump’s tariff threat in kind with “bazooka” sanctions on American companies.
“Indeed, it seems probable that Trump dialed back threats of force and of new tariffs because of the hostile reaction, including from the stock market,” he added.
Kristof begged Europe not to give in to the president.
“It pains me as an American to urge leaders to defy my own country, and perhaps this seems disloyal. But it’s not. Seizing Greenland won’t benefit Americans any more than occupying Iraq did; we don’t want our children patrolling Nuuk or Toronto any more than we wanted them in Falluja or Kandahar,” he said.
He concluded with a dire three-word plea.
“So, please, world leaders: Don’t appease America.”
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