The Duran Podcast - Greenland, NATO and a Europe without friends

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Greenland, NATO and a Europe without friends

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Greenland and the situation with Greenland and Trump taking Greenland or buying Greenland or perhaps some sort of a deal with Denmark and NATO to share Greenland or whatever they may have in mind. Rubio is expected to speak to Denmark, I believe, in the next day or two. And according to the media, Rubio is going to talk about buying Greenland. But who knows, maybe the United States just might decide to take Greenland. Or maybe the U.S. will do nothing. What is your thought? What are your thoughts? I think that increasingly the opinions in what are.

Washington, at least within the Trump administration, are crystallizing. And there is now an absolute determination to take Greenland. And when we talk about a sale by Denmark of Greenland to the United States, the Danes, of course, know perfectly well, and Rubia will no doubt tell them that either you sell us Greenland or we take it. And given that that is the choice, the Danes, if they do decide to sell Greenland must know that the price is going to be dictated by the United States. It's not going to be a price that Denmark is going to be able to negotiate. Because in this kind of deal, in this kind of bargain, if you like, it's never a bargain at all because the balance of bargaining power is so massively lopsided in American favour.

Denmark cannot hold on to Greenland. The United States will take it. The Danes will probably in the end agree to sell it to the US, deeply, profoundly humiliating though that is going to be to them. They're going to sell it for a minimal price because Donald Trump doesn't like to give money and he's not going to give Denmark an awful lot of money. The reason the Danes are going to sell it is, first, Firstly because they know they can't keep it, but secondly, because all their friends in NATO, the Swedes, the Germans, the British, the others will tell them, for heaven's sake, sell. Because the one thing we cannot afford is a situation where the Americans simply grab the place and that creates a massive crisis within NATO and causes NATO to collapse. because that is the thing that the Europeans are most afraid of. They want, it is their overriding, obsessive priority to keep NATO itself going and to keep the United States still involved in Europe. And for that reason, they're going to put enormous pressure on the Danes to agree to whatever it is that the Americans and Donald Trump demand.

Trump wants to take it. This is my sense of it. Trump wants to take it so he can show peace through strength, strength, right? So he can show that he's the strong man in all of this and he can take whatever he wants. He doesn't particularly like the Europeans either. But anyway, he wants to show that he's the strong man.

And I think his advisors, if I had to take a guess, I think his advisors are going to tell them to sell Greenland, whatever the price may be, because they can be. they can package it in a way that's not as humiliating for Denmark, for the EU, and for NATO. Yeah, so I think they'll tell Trump, look, everyone knows you can take it. But let's sell it to Greenland for X amount of dollars, whatever the price is going to be. And that way we can package it as a win for everybody. And even Denmark can go to their citizens and they can say, well, you know, we decided after all to earn some money.

from Greenland. We weren't doing much with it anyway. And so we decided to make some money. Maybe we'll send this money to Project Ukraine. NATO can be happy and they can say that you see the great negotiator, Trump. He came up with an amazing deal. And both parties have come out ahead. Greenland's going to prosper with all the U.S. military bases. It already has a military base, but the U.S. is going to build all kinds of military bases in Greenland. And the EU can say the same thing. We've kept the alliance with the U.S. intact. And Denmark now has some money in their pockets. And who knows, maybe we can use this money to fund Project Ukraine or whatever. That's how they'll package it, right? Absolutely. No, the money will not be a lot, by the way. And I think this is the key thing

to say. I don't think it matters in the marketing scheme of things. Exactly. We're talking about, you know, one or two billion at most, because as I said, it'll be the Americans who will dictate the price. first thing to say. You're absolutely correct. I mean, this is going to be Trump's, it provides Trump with the way of saying, you know, this is me, I've achieved this huge thing, I vastly expanded the territory of the United States. This is the biggest non-continental island in the world. It brings the United States. It makes it a big player in the Arctic, all of those things. So they're going to say that. So this is going to be what Donald Trump. is going to say, I think there is a strategic rationale back to this, which goes beyond Trump

himself, and this goes back to the whole spheres of influence and the defense of the Western hemisphere thing that we've discussed in many programs, in fact, which we were the first to discuss shortly after Trump became president and the general direction of his presidency became increasingly clear. Anyway, the point is that Greenland is part of the Western Hemisphere geographically. It is also a good barrier to protect North America from any advance from the east or from the north, from Europe or the Arctic or wherever. So if you're talking about a policy of the United States retreating into a Western hemispheric fortress,

then control of Greenland without having Greenland attached in any way to some other European power, notably Denmark, does begin to make a kind of strategic sense. So I don't think this is just something that's come off the top of Donald Trump's head. I don't know who exactly advises him, but I can imagine that some of the people within the administration who are thinking increasingly in the sphere of influence type terms, I think they would probably be quite keen on this for all the reasons that I've said. Now, as for the Europeans, I think you're absolutely right.

I think that's exactly what's going to happen. The United States will buy Greenland from Denmark. There'll be lots of attempts to package this and to pretend that this is all some kind of deal. The Europeans are going to be profoundly humiliated and upset about this. In some ways, it's going to be even worse for them, I will say, with their own populations. And certainly it will be with the Danish population, but with the European populations in general. if the United States buys Greenland at what will be in effect a fire sale, rather than if the United States simply marched in and took it over, because a sale, a forced sale by Denmark of Greenland to the United States, exposes the utter powerlessness, the complete dependence of Europe on the United States,

and the extent to which the Europeans no longer are able to stand up to the Americans on anything, even on the territory, even on questions of the territory of one of the European NATO states. And that they have no bargaining power of any significance with respect to the Americans at all. And the level of humiliation and the level of anger is going to be extremely. extraordinary high, extraordinarily high, within amongst governments and within the EU bureaucracies as well, the EU bureaucracy as well. And I am sorry to say that they will do that which humiliated governments always do. They will take out their anger against their own people. And we will see even more push towards censorship, repression, information control.

inside Europe attempts to suppress any criticism, for example, of this deal, we're going to see more of that, even more of that in the future. So it's important to remember what this means and it will demonstrate in an unambiguous way to everybody in Europe, even those who have been formerly friends of the United States and who believed in the alliance with the United States, that it is no longer an alliance any longer. Even the pretense that it is an alliance has gone. It is a situation, a relationship where the United States dominates and the Europeans do whatever they're told. The Trump administration is going to increase the military budget in 27 to 1.5 trillion. That's what he wants.

He's doing this to create the dream military is what he says. He says he's going to fund this through the tariffs and all of that stuff. Okay, whatever. But 1.5 trillion, from about 900 billion to 1.5 trillion. You don't do this unless you're planning for conflict. Yes. Okay. I can't figure out another reason that you're going to increase a military budget by 600 billion.

pretty much. That's what the increase is going to be in one year. They're going to find the money. I don't think they have the money from the tariffs. Last I read, they've collected maybe a couple of hundred billion, maybe 500 billion from the tariffs. They say they have 14 billion pledged. But, I mean, just because a country, Ursula said she's going to give $1.5 trillion to the United States. Where is that money? But they're going to find the money. They will find the money and they will give it to the MIC. What if Greenland is not about protection or a retreat? What is the United States retreating from? What is the United States protecting itself from? The Arctic, I can understand, the Arctic exploration. Say you want a foothold in the Arctic. You don't want to deal

with Canada and you want to have your own ice breakers or whatever in the Arctic and you want to you want to have a presence there. That I understand. The trade routes, I understand. But what if Greenland is also going to function as not a retreat, but as a forward position, a forward station? So that by 2030, given that you're increasing the military budget to $1.5 trillion, your goal, at the end of the day, if you're the United States, if you're the neocons running the show, and the neocons are without a doubt running foreign policy. They're probably running foreign policy more than the Biden administration for Lindsey Graham and Rubio. They're pretty much calling the shots.

What if your goal is to find a way to continue to push the Europeans towards that conflict with Russia? I don't think that Greenland... Even if the Europeans are not ready, because I know the Europeans are not ready, and they're probably never going to be ready. But what if you're the neo? I guess my question is, can you put yourself in the neocons? shoes where they say, I don't care if the UK has a military force of 1,000 or 10,000 or Germany, I don't care about the numbers. I don't care about the reality of it. What I want is the grand chessboard. I want to see that, you know, come to pass. I don't think that controlling Greenland makes sense in

those terms. And I'll say, well, I'll explain straightforwardly like why. Greenland is already NATO territory. It is controlled by the, effectively, by the United States. The military is already, there, if given the kind of hysteria that there is in Europe, if the United States wanted to pursue that kind of policy, it would make more sense to keep Denmark and happy and to keep Greenland not to upset the situation between Denmark and Greenland and the United States over Greenland. It would have to come along and tell Felix, and look, we've got this enormous threat and problem from the Russians.

we need to start preparing for war with them. What we need to do is to massively expand our military presence in Greenland and to deploy very much larger forces in Greenland. And by the way, in Iceland too, because Iceland represents the other part of the gap, the Greenland-Ferros Iceland gap, through which the Russian Navy has to pass in order to enter the North Atlantic.

So it would make much more, sense to lead the geography as it is, the political geography as it is, but to conduct a massive military buildup there. If we're talking about a military buildup by the United States in the Arctic, this would take decades to be effective against the Russians who are far, far stronger, and who have an enormous head start in the Arctic. And this isn't, in my opinion, the place where the United States, at this particular point in time, needs and wants to focus. If you go to the rhetoric that's coming out of the administration itself, if you go back to the security strategy review, my sense is that what these people, and they are neocons,

but their neocons have been different types. We've discussed this before. There's the China first neocons and there's the Russia first neocons. the ones who are in the ascendant of the moment seem to be the China-first neocons. The purpose, in my opinion, of this massive, I believe, by the way, unaffordable increase in defense spending, yes, the United States will find the money. But the extent of the US defense budget over time is going to become increasingly, increasingly unaffordable. It's going to create enormous stresses within the US financial system

because they have to find means to finance this, what's going to be a swelling budget deficit from the moment. But we'll talk about the economics of this later. And near cons, by the way, never talk about economics. It's never something that ever features in their discussions. But anyway, what the plan is, is to build up the US Navy, to build up the US fleet, to build these cruisers, these big ships that Donald Trump has been talking about to probably build more aircraft carriers, to build up the U.S. shipbuilding industry, which is in a very, very bad condition. And all of this in order to confront China in the Pacific, the Asia Pacific. The kind of battleships or battlecruisers that Donald Trump was talking about don't make any sense.

sense if you're talking about conflict in the Arctic, they make a great deal of sense if you're talking about conflict against China in the Pacific. And the other thing that the Americans, the people who are driving this want to do is that they want to build up America's strategic forces. its anti-ballistic defense systems. We're probably going to see huge amounts of investment in all of that. And also its strategic forces, its nuclear triad, which is, by the way, very run down. They want hypersonic missiles. They want a new generation of ballistic missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles. They're far behind the Russians here, and they're behind the Chinese too.

And the Chinese are adding to their ballistic missile arsenal all the time. So I think this is what the US wants and they want more submarines. All of these things costs huge sums of money. But I think what spooks them is that the Chinese Navy has now overtaken the US Navy in numbers, not yet in tonnage, but one can see that the gap is shrinking all the time. from one day to the next, and for the United States, as I said, confronting China, the big peer competitor, that seems to be the driving animus of the neocons who are currently in charge in Washington. The anti-China neocons at the moment are in the ascendant.

It may not always stayed like this. The anti-Russian neocons are always there. They will continue to say that the Russians' Russia is the weaker power, so we should go after them before we take on China. We need to cut off China's supplies first, and that means coming after the Russians. But that takes time, and I get the sense behind all of this, behind this enormous increase in defense spending, that there is a sense of urgency, a sense that time is short, a sense that the Chinese have head start, that they're manufacturing capacities bigger, that they are moving forward in

technology and science terms, and that they must be confronted and defeated before they become stronger still. That is my sense of what it is that the dominant group within the United States is all about. What if this is just about land? Trump is just looking to expand the U.S. his land, so you can go down in history as someone who has expanded U.S. territory and he gets Greenland. And he still has Panama, the Panama Canal, which he talked about, which I imagine he'll bring up maybe when all of this stuff is settled. I'm sure he'll bring up the Panama Canal.

And then we have Canada. Absolutely. Now, when you look at a map, if the U.S. takes Greenland, Canada's. surrounded. Absolutely. What happens then? Unless of course Canada does the thing that he'd ought to have done long ago, which has meant its relations with Russia. We said that a long time ago. We said that two, three years ago that Canada should not only deal with Russia, but should also open up to China to everyone. Canada should have opened up. Exactly. They never will. They never will. But Trudeau decided to default under the globalist EU click. Exactly. Exactly. From Justin Trudeau.

A carney's no different. Canada's surrounded. Absolutely. And absolutely, the Americans have their eyes, at least when I say the Americans. There's been quite clear about this. The hardline Americans have their eyes on Canada too. And of course, if the United States takes over Canada and Greenland, it becomes in territory the biggest country in the world.

It overtakes Russia, just to say. And this, I think, does matter for Trump personally. I mean, he wants to see the United States being beautiful and best to use an expression that I remember from my childhood. So I think there is a driving impulse, which is very strong within Trump himself, to achieve this. And I absolutely think that over the next few months and years, you're going to see increasing pressure of that kind on Canada too.

it also again, and this is a point, makes a certain kind of strategic sense if you follow the kind of thinking that Elbridge Colbury and people like him. I'm not talking about Colby himself because I don't know him, but anyway, the way people think Elbridge Colby thinks, I don't know that he has any particular plans about Canada, but I can imagine that there might be some people, the actual neocons of an anti-China position, who again say to themselves, we've got to secure control fully over Canada. We need to lock China, and they really do mean China first and foremost, out of the entire Western Hemisphere, we cannot allow any country potentially to be in a position where they might develop a relationship with China.

And it tends to get forgotten. But 10 years ago, Canada had a very good economic and trade and political relationship with China. It started to go south with the highway affair and all of those things. But previously, Canada had a good relationship with China. So we can't allow that. We can't accept that. We've got to have complete control. the best way you achieve complete control is by absorption, absorb Canada, fold Canada, as well as Greenland, into the United States.

All right, we will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on XRumble and Telegram. We are also on Substack. So check us out on Substack and go to the Durant Shop. Pick up some merch. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.