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U.S. President Donald Trump’s pursuit of Greenland may be tied to his failure to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, according to foreign policy expert Daniel Ditus. Speaking from New Rochelle, Ditus described Trump’s approach as “coercive diplomacy,” using both personal leverage and threats of force to achieve territorial ambitions. A text message from Trump to Norway’s prime minister, made public on Monday, linked his harder stance on Greenland directly to being denied the prize, signaling a shift from his earlier peacemaker image.
00:00Daniel DiPietro is a fellow at Defense Priorities, that's an American foreign policy think tank.
00:05He joins us from New Rochelle in New York. Daniel, welcome.
00:08I want to begin with Greenland. You know, we often talk about Trump being transactional.
00:12Give him what looks like a win and he might leave you alone.
00:15When it comes to Greenland, do you think he really just needs a Nobel Peace Prize to make this go away?
00:23Yeah, thank you for having me.
00:24It's very interesting that Trump is sort of leveraging his diplomatic power in pursuit of territorial conquest, which, of course, Denmark owns Greenland effectively and is a staunch NATO ally.
00:39I think Trump is essentially using his diplomatic prowess and his tendency to kind of ad-lib diplomacy, if you will, personalized diplomacy to get what he wants.
00:51And that is, as far as we can tell, full-on ownership, American ownership of Greenland, which, by the way, he has been obsessed with going back towards his first term as well.
01:04In this case, would we call this diplomacy when he's not excluding the possibility of a military operation?
01:12I think it is still diplomacy. It's just coercive diplomacy.
01:15I mean, you see throughout the last 12 months of his second term, he uses coercion far more than he uses compromise.
01:24The way Trump goes about it is essentially lobbying rhetorical threats, threats of tariffs, threats of export controls, and leaving military force on the table to coerce these other countries, whether it's Denmark, whether it's Russia or Ukraine, to cooperate with his agenda.
01:41I think that's what we're seeing in Greenland right now.
01:44I'd be very surprised if Trump actually ordered a military attack on Greenland, but he's a very unpredictable person, so it's hard to say for sure.
01:53Is being a peacemaker important to Trump and his base, or could it be just the prize, being seen as a peacemaker?
02:00I think he does want to be a peacemaker.
02:05The problem is Trump wants peace on his terms, and we learned throughout history that trying to get a perfect peace often elongates a war or a conflict and makes things even more difficult down the line.
02:18So Trump, you know, he does speak about peace very often.
02:22As you initiated during his inauguration speech, he talked about being a peacemaker and a unifier around the world.
02:30Trump does not like to compromise his core interests.
02:33He likes to put forth a maximalist negotiating position, and he's very reluctant to actually offer concessions to the other side.
02:40So he wants peace.
02:41The problem is he also wants a maximalist peace that he can kind of broadcast as a win and a personal triumph.
02:50Is peace on his terms the same as an objective peace that others might recognize elsewhere?
02:55If you look at Europe, for example, it would see the threat of what could happen in Greenland as threatening its peace.
03:01For example, the status of NATO, which has a direct bearing on the threat posed by Russia.
03:05In this case, how do you argue that he's going even for peace when it comes to Greenland, when he's looking at fracturing the most successful military alliance that potentially the world has ever seen?
03:17Well, that's why I mentioned peace on his terms, right?
03:19The Europeans are very, very, very angry about Trump's position on Greenland.
03:24As you mentioned, you know, the European Council will be meeting this week talking about financial penalties against the Americans or potential financial penalties against the Americans as a form of retaliation.
03:36So the Europeans obviously do not believe Trump is after peace.
03:39They believe Trump is after territorial acquisition.
03:43In Trump's mind, though, this is a way to kind of leverage his own definition of peace.
03:49And I understand that's a very strange thing for your viewers to listen to right now.
03:53But Trump's version of peace, his definition of peace is a lot more sporadic and a lot different than what the conventional term would be.
04:02And the Europeans are going by the conventional term.
04:04And this does not look like peace to the Europeans.
04:06Far from it.
04:07But we know that in the past few months, Trump also seems to have found a liking for the kind of deep strikes and covert action that the U.S. military has been known for under other administrations.
04:19If we look at Iran last year, the nuclear bunker, if we look at Nigeria, Venezuela, is he not changing his tone, actually?
04:29His tone is changing.
04:31His rhetorical tone is changing.
04:32His actions and his policies are not changing.
04:34And I'm glad you brought up Nigeria and Iran and Venezuela, by the way.
04:40It seems to me that, you know, for all his rhetoric about striking grand peace agreements and trying to get the Nobel Peace Prize, what he's truly doing is using the military as a first resort.
04:52Tariffs are a second resort in many of these instances.
04:55So, again, this is coercion.
04:56This is Trump's view of how you get good deals and how you solve problems.
05:01And, of course, in the real world, you're not really solving problems.
05:04You're delaying them.
05:05To another time.
05:07What about his supporters, including his base and independents who voted for him in the last election?
05:13Are they going to accept this idea of coercive diplomacy using military means as well?
05:18What are we seeing?
05:20I think they already have.
05:22I mean, Trump has a very solid base, a very solid political base in the United States.
05:26Effectively, they are going to support whatever Trump decides to do.
05:29You have some very vocal Republican lawmakers in the United States Senate who are not not afraid to go on the record with their objections.
05:39But in terms of Trump's actual support base, his MAGA support at the grassroots level, Trump doesn't have to worry about defections.
05:47He can pretty much do whatever he needs to do foreign policy-wise, and he's going to get backed up by his supporters.
05:53But real quick, does that apply also to independents who voted for him but may not be all the way with him when it comes in comparison to his base?
06:02I don't think it applies to independents, no.
06:07And that's the thing about Trump.
06:08He cares first and foremost about his political base.
06:12That's who his constituents are.
06:14And, of course, he doesn't have to run for a second term, so he doesn't really need to worry about independents.
06:20We have a midterm election this year in the United States.
06:24We'll see how foreign policy sort of becomes an issue.
06:28I suspect it won't.
06:29It's probably going to be on domestic pocketbook issues with the economy, inflation, and everything else you would expect a midterm election to be.
06:37All right.
06:37That's Daniel DiPietras in New Rochelle, New York.
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