What if Trump is actually serious about Greenland?

The US president's play for the territory has all the hallmarks of a Mafia shakedown (PA)

- SEAN O'GRADY

In some ways and without wanting to be macabre or malign - the best thing that could have happened with the American attack on Venezuela would have been for it to have failed. Instead, the sheer size of the American forces and the ultra-professional way they prepared for the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and his wife has imbued Donald Trump with an intoxicating sense of invincibility.

Or, to put it another way, like a rogue tiger, it has given him a taste for the raw meat of neo-imperial conquest - vast territorial, defence and economic rewards, secured at minimal risk. No wonder some say America itself is becoming the worst version of itself: a rogue state where its unrivalled military prowess is used not as a deterrent against an evil empire, but for its own selfish, reckless and illegal ends.

That brings us to Greenland. It is a vast territory with a population of only about 30,000 adults, defended by Denmark - hardly in the superpower league - and where the principal line of defence appears to be little more than a polite but firm letter signed by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain (that last nation being especially notorious for not wanting to pony up money for defence). Against that, Trump can see himself securing the largest expansion in US territory in its 250-year history, plus all those rare earth minerals currently dominated by China, and a strategic asset that grows ever more valuable as the ice sheets retreat and the northern sea routes open up. Who knows what lies beneath all that snow and ice?