this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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US President Donald Trump has said he may impose trade tariffs on countries that do not support his plans to take over Greenland.

"I may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security," Mr Trump said at the White House.

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[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 hours ago

He's already done that and as a Canadian I've not really noticed much difference.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 11 points 13 hours ago

But those countries that don't agree with you taking over Greenland would be by definition in conflict with the United States. So I doubt there would be any trade happening anyway.

He really is a pudding brain.

[–] teslekova@sh.itjust.works 11 points 13 hours ago

Okay, have fun taxing your own people, you stupid fuck.

[–] Dogiedog64@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago
[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Dear Europe and Canada,

Please don’t kidnap our dear leader Shitler us Americans would be too sad to invade your territory if you did that. Pretty please…I meant please don’t take our favorite pedofile baby killing con man and take him to the hauge.

Thank you, American people

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 16 points 16 hours ago

Fuck the US and it’s imperialist, expansionist bullshit. Tarrif whatever you want - no one wants to trade with your fascist country and countries are making other trade arrangements without the US.

[–] IronpigsWizard@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I bet this will totally bring down grocery prices!...

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 13 hours ago

The international cabal of chicken farmers is really worried.

[–] zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 20 hours ago (12 children)

Go ahead, I can't wait to laugh when they sell all the US bonds and declare US copyrights and patents as null and void.

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[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 86 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, no. You know what? I think we're better off without the US at this point.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

As someone in the US, I think Americans are better off without the federal government at this point.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip 20 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

As a Californian, I'll happily tell the fed to fuck all the way off.

[–] assembly@lemmy.world 7 points 21 hours ago

Long Live Cascadia!!!!

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 9 points 21 hours ago

You might be onto something.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 18 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

The global community has agency, and it should really start to create plans for things like getting currencies off of the US dollar.

[–] ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It is, from moving away from fossil fuels to bilateral trade being done in local currencies (back in the day America would just bomb you, but the dog has lost some fangs) and gold/silver stocking, but it's a gradual process. The dollar just needs to be highly devalued, I'm sure it'll continue being the global currency for many many years but not at this price point.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 5 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I feel ya, but the Trump administration expects that the global, local, and market response will be gradual. As soon as they start seeing quick responsive volatility that impacts Trump or his cronies, they TACO.

Given what’s happening with Venezuela, Greenland and the Fed Chair, I don’t know we’re not aggressively talking pulling out of US bonds and setting investment policy around that. That doesn’t have to be a gradual thing, it can happen swiftly.

People naturally started backing out of US bonds when Trump’s crazy tariffs started rolling out, and the Trump admin totally wussed out on a lot of that stuff.

Also, if the world is going to stop pegging their currencies to the dollar, they need to stop buying US bonds first. They need to diversify.

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[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

So every Americans access to capitalism's goods is all a tool for trump to play his idiotic micropenis games with the world now. Capitalism wasnt great, but is this technically even capitalism anymore?

[–] aarRJaay@lemmy.world 13 points 18 hours ago

So everyone then?

[–] fox2263@lemmy.world 22 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Still doesn’t know how tariffs work I see.

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 39 points 23 hours ago (6 children)

And he may put tariffs on you anyway, so that's a wash and you may as well do what's right. If your country doesn't push back, he'll come for you sooner or later. Mark Carney take note.

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 6 points 21 hours ago

The strategy of appeasement didn't work for anyone.

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[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 34 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

Kinda seems that the whole rest of the world should just join BRICS or something. Tariffs ain't gone mean much if the rest of the world just shrugs and keeps progressing their global economy without you.

[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 25 points 22 hours ago

BRICS intends to be just as bad if not worse. China and Russia in particular. Their hostility towards the US way of doing things isn't because they actually think what the US is doing is wrong, it's because they want to be the ones doing all the bad things the US is currently doing, they feel like the US economic and political dominance is stopping them from being able to do many of these bad things (which is true) and they believe it is their right to do whatever bad things they want to do, which may be true (obviously the US has gotten away with it for decades), but that is still not a point I am willing to concede. Turning to BRICS means conceding that point and letting them do whatever bad things they want to globally. And they will.

The EU is far from perfect, and they have a lot of work to do, but they seem like the only reasonable economic path forward for anyone that wants to at least try to respect human rights and behave in a civilized manner at this point.

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 15 points 23 hours ago

Or the EU depending on geography and preference. Either is more desirable regardless.

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[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 26 points 22 hours ago

He's basically admitting that his plans may be foiled if other countries don't support him.

And they won't. Tariffs are a much better alternative than risking world war 3. Also the US is already tariffing the shit out of most of the world's goods anyway.

[–] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 11 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

American here (not a Trump fan).

There's three things we should be looking at IMHO.


First- Trump is a publicity man, an actor. He understands the camera.

Think of a magic show. You have the magician and the cute assistant in a swimsuit. So when they set up the trick the assistant is flourishing her hands and dancing over the stage to distract you from noticing that the magician palmed your card instead of shuffling it back into the deck.

Trump understands this. And he knows how to play both the magician and the assistant.

So if he says something wild like this, understand he WANTS attention on that statement, which probably means he DOESN'T want attention on something else. Like Epstein. If those files have any kind of actual proof he partook in Epstein's services, there's a good chance that an impeachment might actually succeed to conviction. Because it's easy to 'stand with your party leader', it's a lot harder to say 'yes I stand by my vote that the guy in the picture with his dick in a 14yo girl should stay President'.

Point being- whenever Trump says something outrageous like this, your first question should be 'what DOESN'T he want me paying attention to?


Second- understand that USA literally cannot annex Greenland by force. Greenland is a territory of Denmark, and Denmark is a member of NATO. If the US invades Denmark, all other NATO companies are OBLIGATED to provide military support. So that would basically kick USA out of NATO, and you can bet your bottom dollar that not only NATO but also Russia, China, North Korea, etc would all fall over themselves to 'help respect and defend the sovereign territory of Denmark from illegal invasion'. That very quickly becomes a 'US vs Rest Of World' war and even with our giant military there's NO chance we win against the entire rest of the planet combined. Plus militarily we would be isolated, ostracized from the world economy.

Americans understand this. Our government understands this. Congress understands this. Even if Trump does not, Congress would not authorize such a war.

As for tariffs- Congress is much more hesitant to curtail Trump's tariff powers, but their tolerance has a limit (somewhere). It's one thing to enact tariffs 'to protect American manufacturing', they'll generally tolerate a 'good faith' effort like that. But when the tariff becomes punitive to countries that aren't supporting an annexation that obviously isn't going to happen, I think Congress might step in.


Third- While this all may well be a distraction or a strategy, it is doing actual harm to our international relations. If I was a citizen of EU, AU, Asia, etc, I would be saying 'the US can no longer be trusted to lead the world economy, the rest of the world needs to find a solution where the US is 'one among many' not calling the shots. And a big part of that would likely be a different worldwide reserve currency. Because right now this is like being on a bus where every few minutes the driver jokes about swerving in front of an oncoming semi truck- even if he won't do it, you still don't want to be on that bus.


What this also means is that the next Presidential election is important not just for American internal politics but for determining what our place in the world will be going forward. While Trump is ineligible to be re-elected, I think it's important that the US send a clear message this isn't the sort of statesmanship that we want representing us. That DOESN'T mean blindly vote blue. It means vote in primaries, vote for candidates who act like statesmen.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 14 hours ago

If the US invades Denmark, all other NATO companies are OBLIGATED to provide military support. So that would basically kick USA out of NATO,

The other countries can simply not oblige (and thus kill NATO). That's the more realistic option.

and you can bet your bottom dollar that not only NATO but also Russia, China, North Korea, etc would all fall over themselves to ‘help respect and defend the sovereign territory of Denmark from illegal invasion’.

Lol no they wouldn't. Neither would they care about who owns Greenland (except probably Russia), neither would they waste immense amounts of money and manpower to fight the biggest military and economy in the world for no real gain, and neither would 2/3 of the listed countries (Ru, NK) be able to do anything serious against US anyway (outside of suicidally throwing nukes at it).

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

So you're saying EU needs to threaten with an Epstein Tariff Retaliation Program and keep throwing the name around until he backs off in a weaponized Streisand effect?

[–] coredev@programming.dev 8 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Couldn't they just rename Greenland to Epstein Island? "USA need Epstein Island for our security" would be pretty hard to sell.

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[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 15 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

So if congress does not support his plans, is he imposing tariffs on the US?

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 9 points 22 hours ago

Already has

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[–] redlemace@lemmy.world 14 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Every time the same threat only means you actually have next to nothing to threaten with Never give in to blackmail it only leads to more (as he has proven quite clearly with this statement!)

[–] niceusername@lemmy.ml 13 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Lol just tariff us then.

We'll slap on retaliation tariffs.

I will pay a lot to be petty and take away what he thinks is his one card.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 9 points 22 hours ago

You might even call it his trump card.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 11 points 22 hours ago

The rest of the world needs to just embargo us at this point.

[–] splount@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

He's become like the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland. Everything requires a singular response. "Off with their heads!" It's like he's not smart enough or emotionally mature enough to consider another response, let along a more subtle response. It's like he needs to prove to everyone he is a strongman by yelling at everyone within earshot that he is strong. Methinks he doth protest too much.

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[–] assembly@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

At this point, it appears that the EU is the last bastion of liberal democracy still standing. The world should probably start to move to the Euro as reserve currency and the basis of trade.

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[–] Nebraska_Huskers@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

If someone would just please take him and Vance out, it would be greatly appreciated

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