U.S. allies in Europe are banding together against President Donald Trump’s ultimatum: tax imported goods from their countries unless Denmark surrenders control of strategically important Greenland. Trump said that U.S. ownership of Greenland – an 800,000-square-mile Arctic island and Danish territory – is vital to national security. He says Denmark cannot defend its mineral-rich territory from China and Russia. On Monday, Trump criticized NATO, saying the alliance has failed to compel Denmark to comply. “NATO has been telling Denmark, for 20 years, that ‘you have to get the Russian threat…
Posts published in “Politics”
There are no Chinese warships operating in Greenland and no significant Chinese investments in the region, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in Washington on Wednesday, as he countered US threats to seize the Arctic island. Rasmussen, together with Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt, had an hourlong meeting with US Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, the first face-to-face meeting between the high-level officials as Washington’s rhetoric of taking full control Greenland has run high. “It was a great opportunity also for…
In an extraordinary escalation of his bid to claim Greenland, US President Donald Trump has threatened eight European countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Great Britain, France and Germany and the Netherlands – with a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the United States from February 1 until he is able to buy the semi-autonomous Danish territory. That tariff will then increase to 25% on June 1. On the one hand, Greenland is potentially rich in raw materials and rare earth minerals, highly desirable for US tech giants who…
Amid global tensions involving Venezuela and Iran, there is hope that the scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing in April 2026 could arrest America’s aggressive and predatory policies. A possible Trump-Xi détente could also reduce risk-taking in the Taiwan Straits, and push China to take a different position on the Ukraine war. In 2025, Trump accepted an invitation from Xi to visit Beijing in April 2026. The call, as US media reported, was initiated by Xi. This was preceded by a…
WASHINGTON — The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House was defined by clashes with the judiciary branch, as the president and his administration pushed forward with an aggressive immigration agenda. In the past year, the Trump administration has aimed to drastically change immigration policy in the United States, including by stripping millions of immigrants of their legal status and attempting to redefine the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. The moves have often run directly against the judiciary branch. Federal judges briefly stalled the Trump administration’splans to deploy…
King called for an aggressive federal effort to reverse racial inequality. Instead, we’re getting one to entrench it. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words from his “Beyond Vietnam” speech still ring true. “When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people,” he warned, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Those words, delivered in 1967, still summarize today’s political moment. Instead of putting the lives of working Americans first, our leaders in Congress and the White House…
CARACAS, Venezuela. It was 1:58 a.m. on Jan. 3 when a thunderous roar made the windows of my apartment in downtown Caracas shake. Are the New Year’s celebrations still going on? Is a storm coming or is it an earthquake, I wondered. Despite multiple threats from the United States against Venezuela, I couldn’t believe that bombing was possible; not like this, not now. As people say in Venezuela, “It’s one thing to call on the devil, and another to see him actually arrive.” As the missiles began to fall one…
Decades of water depletion, dam building, and repression of scientists and environmentalists have driven Iran toward ecological crises that are fueling the protests rocking the country. The anti‑government protests sweeping across Iran, from major cities to rural towns, are fueled by anger over economic collapse and political repression. But beneath the headlines of currency devaluations and street clashes lies a deeper, more permanent driver of dissent: ecological calamity. Decades of ignoring scientists, persecuting activists and greenlighting corrupt development schemes have triggered a water crisis so severe that President Masoud Pezeshkian…
One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy. From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery. Most states limited voting to white men. Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they…
The future of many of Donald Trump’s tariffs are up in the air, with the Supreme Court expected to hand down a ruling on the administration’s global trade barriers any day now. But the question of whether a policy is legal or constitutional – which the justices are entertaining now – isn’t the same as whether it’s wise. And as a trade economist, I worry that Trump’s tariffs also pose a threat to “economic democracy” – that is, the process of decision-making that incorporates the viewpoints of everyone affected by…