President Donald Trump said Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trying to back out of a rare earth deal with the U.S., adding if he does that he is going to have ‘some problems.’

‘I think Zelenskyy, by the way, he’s trying to back out of the rare earth deal, and if he does that, he’s got some problems – big, big problems,’ Trump said while speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday. ‘We made a deal on rare earths, and now he’s saying, ‘well, you know, I want to renegotiate the deal.’ He wants to be a member of NATO. Well, he was never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that, so, if he’s looking to renegotiate the deal, he’s got big problems.’

Zelenskyy said last month that Ukraine is ready to sign an agreement on minerals and security with the U.S. at any time, noting that the agreement is seen as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees.

Zelenskyy’s statement came after a visit to the White House where the two leaders were expected to sign an agreement on rare Earth minerals. But the visit turned sour, and Zelenskyy was kicked out of the president’s home with no deal in hand.

While speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump said he and his team were making progress on a ceasefire deal between Ukraine and Russia.

One reporter asked if Trump would say his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin was at its lowest point.

The president said no, adding he did not think Putin was going to go back on his word for a partial ceasefire. He also said deals are made with people whether you like them or not.

Trump explained that Putin had said some things over the last few days about Zelenskyy not being credible, adding he was not happy about that. But, Trump added, he thinks Putin is going to be good. He also said he would not want to put secondary tariffs on Russia.

The U.S. put secondary tariffs on Venezuela, which Trump said has had a ‘very strong impact.’

‘You know that every ship just got out and left. A lot of them left. They dropped the hoses right into the ocean, and they left. They didn’t want to be there for a minute because they didn’t want those tariffs to catch on,’ Trump said. ‘But they didn’t want me to see them there. So, Venezuela and secondary tariffs, all secondary tariffs, are very strong, because essentially it says if you disobey our orders, you cannot do business in the United States of America, and that’s the catch.’

Trump said he plans to hit all the countries across the board with tariffs.

‘If you look at the history, and you look at what’s happened to us…take a look at trade with Asia, and I wouldn’t say anybody is doing it as fairly or nicely,’ Trump said. ‘We’re…going to be much more generous than they were to us.’

Trump also addressed questions about possibly running for a third term, which earlier in the day he said he was ‘not joking’ about.

Initially, Trump told reporters he was not looking at a third term, noting that people have spoken with him about a possible third term.

He said the 2020 election, in which he lost to now former President Joe Biden, was ‘totally rigged,’ but he would not take credit for a third try.

Trump also said his administration has had the best 100 days than any other president.

‘I was with some very important people today, and they said they’ve never seen turnaround as fast as this,’ he said.

As reporters continued to press him about a third term, though, Trump quickly shot them down.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he told one reporter. ‘I don’t want to talk about a third term now. We have a long time. We have almost four years to go.’

WASHINGTON – In a wide-ranging interview last week, Energy Secretary Chris Wright discussed how the U.S. can bring nuclear power to the fore for both energy and defense purposes, starting with rebooting otherwise dormant ‘pit’ production.

Under the first Trump administration, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) sought to meet the Pentagon’s goal of manufacturing 80 such pits – spherical hulls of plutonium sized from a grapefruit to a bowling ball – according to the UK Guardian.

Wright suggested he wants to see the plan realized, as the same Energy Department laboratory in New Mexico where J. Robert Oppenheimer helped develop the atom bomb is reportedly working to return to earnest pit production.

The U.S. has never imported plutonium pits but also hasn’t done any such major manufacturing since the end of the Cold War.

‘But those existing weapons stockpiles, like anything else, they age with time. And so, we’ve realized we’ve got to restore the production of plutonium pits in our complex,’ Wright said.

‘We’ve built one in the last 25 years, and we’ll build more than 100 during the Trump administration,’ he pledged.

Bolstering pit production along with a less military-minded nuclear technology are a priority of Wright’s tenure, he said.

Wright said he is working to reopen the shuttered Palisades nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan, which closed a few years ago.

Another major plant, Indian Point on the Hudson River opposite Haverstraw, N.Y., that had helped power New York City was notably closed under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. There has been little effort there, however, to see a reopening.

In addition to the large-scale plants, Wright said the Energy Department seeks to forward SMR or Small Modular Reactor technology, which he said could be groundbreaking in terms of powering underserved communities and important or sensitive sites that may be far from established large-scale plants.

‘Nuclear weapons and nuclear power started in the United States. We built a whole bunch of power plants. And by the mid-80s, we essentially stopped building them,’ he said.

‘Part of our goal is to bring this to make it more efficient to build things in America again. But one thing with nuclear technology is things that you have to build on-location have become slower to build, and therefore way more expensive to build.’

SMRs alleviate that pressure, as materials needed to build the plants can be shipped and assembled on-site on a much smaller scale, but with a potential for per-capita greater power output.

Unlike ‘stick-building a house’ in terms of a large-scale plant, implements for an SMR can be made in a factory and are more mobile.

A data center, military base or state concern could essentially file to have an SMR installed on-site, giving a greater domestic power source and a better overall grid.

‘There’s great private capital, capital that’s been around the innovations to design these plants. But again, you got this slow-moving, bureaucratic central government that’s still got to permit them and allow them to approve. So the nuclear renaissance has been talked about for years. And the Trump administration were actually going to start it,’ Wright said.

‘That is, simplifying the regulatory regime. We just sent out a request for a proposal to fund efforts to speed these along. And actually there was a similar one sent out a while ago for the Biden administration. They hadn’t gotten responses back.’

States that seek to benefit from SMRs have been vocal in support of that technology.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed a bill in 2022 seeking to promote the construction of SMRs, saying that ‘micronuclear technology has a potential role to play in providing low-cost, reliable power for communities, remote villages and resource development projects.’

‘This bill will update state law to allow us to pursue the possibilities.’

Asked about opposition to nuclear energy, including the closure of Indian Point, Wright said that like almost any other topic, it is vulnerable to politicization.

‘It just makes no sense at all,’ he said. ‘It has by far been the safest way to produce energy in the entire history of the American nuclear industry.’

‘I know exactly how many people have died from nuclear energy: Zero.’

Wright said nuclear power has an ‘incredibly small footprint,’ and echoed President Donald Trump’s criticisms of relying too heavily on wind and solar.

‘You get the energy whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But like any industry, it needs to be alive and vigorous so that supply chain is going; and not building nuclear plants in our country for decades means we’ve lost that industrial capacity. So, we’ve got to stand it back up again.’

President Donald Trump teased he might run for a third term, explaining to NBC News that he enjoys working and is ‘not joking’ about making another run for the Oval Office. 

‘A lot of people want me to do it,’ Trump told NBC News in a phone interview on Sunday. ‘But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.’

For now, he’s ‘focused on the current’ term, but told the outlet he was ‘not joking’ about making a run for a third term. 

‘It is far too early to think about it,’ he added. 

The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, which was ratified in 1951, prevents individuals from serving more than two terms as president. The amendment was ratified after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as president for four terms. 

Roosevelt died during his fourth term and Vice President Harry Truman assumed the presidency. FDR is the only president in the nation’s history who has been elected and served more than two terms, which was largely due to the political and economic climate at home and abroad, with his presidency unfolding amid the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II. 

‘There are methods which you could do it,’ Trump said when asked about how he could go about running for a third term. The outlet floated a possible method where Vice President JD Vance could run for the presidency, win and pass the torch to Trump. The president said such a scenario is one of the methods he could use to serve a third term. 

‘But there are others too,’ Trump added, without elaborating. 

‘I like working,’ he told the outlet when asked if he wants to serve another term. 

Trump has previously teased running for a third term, asking Republican lawmakers in January during a retreat, ‘Am I allowed to run again?’

While Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., a top Trump congressional ally, introduced a resolution just days after Trump’s inauguration in January to allow a president three terms in office, but no more than two consecutive four-year stints.

The amendment would read, ‘No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.’

Ogles told Fox Digital in January that Trump ‘has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal.’

‘To that end, I am proposing an amendment to the Constitution to revise the limitations imposed by the 22nd Amendment on presidential terms,’ Ogles said. ‘This amendment would allow President Trump to serve three terms, ensuring that we can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs.’

Fox Digital reached out to the White House for additional comment on Sunday afternoon, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

The Trump administration’s Signal chat leak represents the ‘profound’ risk of ‘uncontrolled communication,’ which could have implications on future operations, a former national intelligence official said Sunday.

Sue Gordon, the former principal deputy national intelligence director during President Donald Trump’s first term, reacted to the leak during an appearance on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation.’

‘I’m glad the operation was successful,’ Gordon said, referring to the U.S. military strikes on Houthi terrorist targets. ‘Now we need to deal with the fact that this should not have happened, there is consequence when it does and you can’t be sure that there’s no persistent risk that follows it.’

Gordon said that while there have been errors in the past concerning the protection of a partner’s information, this leak is different due to the Trump administration’s reaction of ‘there was nothing to see here.’

‘I don’t think we should rest on the fact that nothing bad happened this time,’ Gordon said. ‘We don’t know whether that communications path has been penetrated, so we don’t know whether state actors that have lots of resources are just sitting and lurking now knowing we do important things on [Signal].’

Signal, an encrypted messaging app, is now under the spotlight after it was revealed that top national security leaders had been in a group chat discussing plans to strike terrorists in Yemen, which also included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. The chat was made public by a first-hand account of the group chat published by Goldberg in an article Monday. 

The Trump administration has maintained that no classified information was shared in the chat, doubling down on Wednesday that The Atlantic’s story was a ‘hoax’ after Goldberg published specific texts from the chat. 

The messages included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth outlining that combat aircraft were set to take off and strike drones were ready for the operation, which were accompanied by timestamps. 

Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie, former CENTCOM commander, also appeared on the program Sunday, saying that while he was ‘surprised’ at the communications leak, he believed the ‘larger story’ was how the U.S. had ‘finally begun to strike the Houthis hard,’ at a speed ‘that, frankly, eluded the previous administration.’

McKenzie said he ‘wouldn’t take anything off the table’ about how the U.S. would confront the Iranian-backed terror group.

‘I think we have the capability — actually, right now, in Iran’s weakened state — to threaten them very strongly,’ the retired general said.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

The Australian government has been taken to court by an internet personality known as ‘Billboard Chris,’ who challenged the nation’s ‘eSafety’ commission’s authority to geo-block a tweet criticizing the appointment of an Australian transgender activist to a World Health Organization board. 

Chris Elston, a Canadian national who often expresses his free speech through slogans and tweets on sandwich boards in public places, had a tweet of his geo-blocked by the Aussies – which was a ‘share’ of a U.K. Daily Mail article about the transgender activist headlined ‘Kinky secrets of UN trans expert revealed.’

The activist, Teddy Cook, filed a complaint with Australia’s eSafety commissioner, which led to a request for X to censor it.

X initially refused, but assented after the government issued a formal order to do so, according to Alliance Defending Freedom International, which is backing Elston. Elston is challenging the move before the Administrative Review Tribunal on Monday.

‘I’m in Australia because their government think their people don’t deserve to know and to make their own mind up about toxic gender ideology,’ the London-based ADFI’s Lois McLatchie Miller said on X ahead of the case.

‘This post from @BillboardChris has been withheld in Australia in response to a legal demand; learn more,’ a message on the tweet’s URL posted by McLatchie Miller from the Land Down Under read.

‘Is that image offensive? Absolutely. It’s offensive to my eyes, because someone appointed as a WHO expert should not be posting those perverted photos, and promoting drugs and bestiality,’ she added, citing content from the Daily Mail piece.

Speaking with Fox News Digital, McLatchie Miller said the situation is a ‘monumental’ case for global free speech, and ‘the ultimate ‘What is a Woman’ suit.’

‘It’s an Australian authority bucking the speech of a Canadian man on an American platform,’ she said.

‘So the Australian authorities have found that because they don’t want Australians to be able to hear a message and discuss a certain topic, they have now reached over to other countries to block that free speech, which is in and of itself fascinating.’

‘Over the last few weeks, when it comes to foreign governments having very surreal policies which are thought to only impact their citizens and their citizens’ human rights, but also the rights for Americans, rights for Canadians, others around the world,’ McLatchie Miller said.

Elston had also recently been fined AU$806 ($508) for ‘obstructing people’ and removed from a public sidewalk by law enforcement after he engaged with passersby about another message on his sandwich board: ‘Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.’

McLatchie Miller’s group noted the case echoed recent stated concerns about global censorship from Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. Vance also brought up his concerns in a joint presser with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

‘We also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British – of course, what the British do in their own country is up to them – but also affect American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens,’ Vance said at the time.

Fox News Digital reached out to Vance’s office for comment on being invoked in the case.

ADFI advocacy director Robert Clarke said in a statement on Elston’s case: 

‘The decision of Australian authorities to prevent Australian citizens from hearing and evaluating information about gender ideology is a patronizing affront to the principles of democracy.’

X is also challenging a six-figure penalty imposed by Australia in 2023 after failing to provide information on how it was addressing exploitation and abuse on its platform, according to News.com.au.

Fox News Digital reached out to Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s office for comment.

Denmark hit back at the Trump administration’s ‘tone’ regarding Greenland on Friday, saying ‘this is not how you speak to your close allies.’

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen released the message in a recorded video just hours after Vice President JD Vance visited an American military base in Greenland, where the vice president criticized Denmark.

‘I have a message for our American friends and all others who are listening,’ Rasmussen said. ‘Much is being said these days. Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course we are open to criticism. But let me be completely honest: we do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.’

The Trump administration has argued that Denmark is failing to protect Greenland from Russian and Chinese aggression, with Vance telling American soldiers at the U.S.’s Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland that ‘Denmark hasn’t done a good job at keeping Greenland safe.’

‘Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,’ Vance said. ‘You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.’

Trump has made it a mission to take over Greenland from Denmark in his second administration.

Rasmussen said that ‘we respect’ the need for the U.S. to have a greater military presence in Greenland, and believes that ‘much more’ can be done within the existing framework of the 1951 defense agreement with the U.S.

‘Let us make use of that and let us do it together,’ the foreign minister said.

Rasmussen noted that Vance said that both Denmark and the U.S. have done little in the Arctic. In his message, Rasmussen said both countries have been ‘harvesting the peace dividend’ and acting on the assumption that the Arctic should be ‘a low-changing area.’

‘But that time is over,’ he said. ‘Status quo is not an option. And that is why we have stepped up as well.’

Rasmussen detailed how Copenhagen invested a billion dollars in Arctic security a few weeks ago to provide more drones, ships and personnel in the area. 

The foreign minister also noted that Greenland is a part of NATO and welcomed all allies to play ‘a greater role in the Arctic,’ though said Copenhagen would step up to do its part.

‘We will shoulder our share of the responsibility. No one should doubt that,’ Rasmussen said.

Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

An American woman who had been detained by the Taliban since February has been freed, a source with knowledge of the release told Fox News on Saturday.

American citizen Faye Hall was released on Thursday and received at the Qatari embassy in Kabul. She has been confirmed to be in good health after undergoing a series of medical checks, the source said. Arrangements are currently underway for her return to the United States.

The Taliban agreed to release Hall after President Donald Trump removed multimillion-dollar bounties on senior members of the militant group, according to a report by the Telegraph.

Trump agreed to remove millions of dollars of bounties on three senior members of the Haqqani network, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban government’s interior minister, the outlet reported, noting that Washington was offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Fox News Digital wasn’t immediately able to confirm the nature of the agreement and has reached out to the White House and the State Department for comment.

Her release was initiated following a court order and with logistical support from Qatar serving in its role as the United States’ protecting power in Afghanistan, the Fox News source said. 

Hall, along with the British couple, Peter Reynolds, 79, his wife Barbie, 75, and their interpreter were arrested on Feb. 1, the outlet reported. 

The Associated Press previously reported that the British couple ran education programs in Afghanistan via Rebuild, an organization that provides education and training programs for businesses, government agencies, educational organizations and nongovernmental groups. 

The Sunday Times said one project was for mothers and children. The Taliban severely restricts women’s education and activities in the country.

It is unclear what relationship Hall had with the couple or their group.

The couple’s detention was not based on any violations of local laws or religious customs, but was a political move by a faction to increase international pressure on the government and Haibatullah Akhundzada, its supreme leader, the Telegraph reported. 

The couple’s children wrote a letter to the Taliban pleading for their release, saying that the couple respected and obeyed the laws.

‘They have chosen Afghanistan as their home, rather than with family in England, and they wish to spend the rest of their lives in Afghanistan,’ the letter reads in part, according to the Associated Press.

Hall’s release comes after the Taliban released American hostage George Glezmann, 65, last week after holding him for more than two years. That deal was also struck after negotiations between the Trump administration and Qatari officials. Glezmann was abducted while visiting Kabul as a tourist on Dec. 5, 2022.

Two other Americans, Ryan Corbett and William McKenty, were released earlier this year in exchange for a Taliban member in U.S. custody in a final-hour deal struck by the Biden administration.

Fox News’ Caitlin McFall and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

As federal judges exceed records with an onslaught of nationwide orders blocking President Donald Trump’s orders, some have revisited how each was confirmed, and whether Republicans could have foreseen their rulings or done anything more to block them. 

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a member of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital in an interview, ‘This is why I think I voted against every Biden judge.’

He acknowledged that many of the judges in question were confirmed before his time, given he was first elected in 2018. 

‘People said to me, ‘Why don’t you ever vote for any of Biden’s judges?” he said. ‘This is why.’

‘Because if they’re not faithful to the rule of law, then you can bet they’ll just be looking for opportunities to intervene politically.’

Since Trump entered office, he has faced a slew of nationwide injunctions to halt actions of his administration, which exponentially outweighs the number his predecessors saw. So far in his new term, the courts have hit him with roughly 15 wide-ranging orders, more than former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden received during their entire tenures. 

Some of those who have ordered the Trump administration to halt certain actions are U.S. District Judges James Boasberg, Amir Ali, Loren AliKhan, William Alsup, Deborah Boardman, John Coughenour, Paul A. Engelmayer, Amy Berman Jackson, Angel Kelley, Brendan A. Hurson, Royce Lamberth, Joseph Laplante, John McConnell and Leo Sorokin. There are 94 districts in the U.S. and at least one district court in each state. These courts are where cases are first heard before potentially being appealed to higher courts. 

Several of these judges were confirmed in the Senate in a bipartisan manner, and some even prevailed with no opposition. There were others who were opposed by every Republican senator. 

One of the most controversial judges, Boasberg, known for blocking a key immigration action by the Trump administration, was confirmed by a roll call vote after being nominated by Obama in 2011. The vote was 96-0 and no Republicans opposed him. 

Former Trump attorney Jim Trusty told Fox News Digital, ‘I don’t think the Republicans ever expected quite the onslaught of lawfare that we’ve seen when President Trump is in office.’

‘The activist nature of some federal district court judges – issuing nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch on a minute’s notice – is unfortunate and puts pressure on appellate courts, including SCOTUS, to fix these problems,’ he explained.

However, he said the real problem is ‘an army of lawyers’ who he said are trying to ‘bend and twist legal principles.’

‘They are spending their days devoted to stopping President Trump’s agenda even if it means siding with Venezuelan gang members who illegally entered the US,’ Trusty claimed. 

Andy McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney and a Fox News contributor, told Fox News Digital, ‘Republicans could have done a much better job blocking Biden’s judicial appointments.’

He pointed to Biden’s recent time as a lame-duck president, specifically referring to nominees that ‘squeaked by’ due to Republican absences. 

‘Biden’s nominees were very radical and should have been opposed as vigorously as possible,’ he said. ‘These are lifetime appointments and the progressives filling these slots will be a thorn in the nation’s side for decades.’

However, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, made a point of saying, ‘There was no way to know how they would rule in future cases like these.’ 

He argued that senators can conduct their due diligence to the best of their abilities, but they can’t see into the future. 

‘The Senate has the right to reject nominees whom it thinks will interpret the Constitution incorrectly, but nominees also have an obligation not to promise how they might rule on cases once they join the bench,’ Yoo said. 

Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, noted to Fox News Digital that senators ‘can’t use the filibuster to defeat the judge,’ which makes blocking controversial nominees even more difficult. 

‘The only way to actually defeat someone’s confirmation is to have the majority of the votes,’ he explained. ‘If Republicans are in the minority, there has to be at least a few Democrats voting against the Democratic nominee to defeat someone.’

Fox News Digital reached out to former Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to comment on how these judges were able to get confirmed. 

The senators were asked if they were still happy with how the judges were confirmed and their individual votes. They were also asked whether there was anything alarming in the judges’ records and if Republicans did enough to block certain confirmations. 

McConnell’s office pointed Fox News Digital to comments he made over the legislative recess at a press conference in Kentucky. 

‘The way to look at all of these reorganization efforts by the Administration is what’s legal and what isn’t… they’ll be defined in the courts,’ he told reporters in response to the legality of potentially shutting down the Department of Education. ‘I can understand the desire to reduce government spending. Every Administration – some not quite as bold as this one – have tried to do that in one way or another. This is a different approach… and the courts will ultimately decide whether the president has the authority to take these various steps. Some may have different outcomes, I’m just going to wait – like all of us in effect are going to wait, and see whether this is permissible or not.’

Grassley’s office pointed to a previous statement from the senator’s spokesperson, Clare Slattery. 

‘The recent surge of sweeping decisions by district judges merits serious scrutiny. The Senate Judiciary Committee will be closely examining this topic in a hearing and exploring potential legislative solutions in the weeks ahead,’ she said. 

The committee has notably slated a hearing on nationwide injunctions for next week. 

Mark Twain’s famous advice to ‘buy land, they aren’t making it anymore’ couldn’t have found a more receptive audience than President Donald Trump, a real estate man at heart who covets a certain piece of property to our north.

Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha traveled to the Island nation this week, visiting a U.S. Space Force base, in the firmest message yet that Trump means business when he says he wants to make Greenland part of America.

Notice that when Trump talks about foreign countries he almost always references the properties he owns there, a golf course in Scotland or a hotel in Dubai. He’s not merely boasting. He’s saying that he has skin in the game and therefore understands the country.

This is not a president who puts much store in intangible multilateral defense agreements that allow the United States to pay for the protection of Danish Greenland. No, he wants the land, not some complicated leasing agreement.

And is it such a crazy notion? We are the nation that pushed Lewis and Clark across the Rockies. We have acquired Alaska and Hawaii, Guam and all the little micro-islands nobody has been to.

The last time the United States grew in territory was in 1947 with the addition of the Marshall Islands and some others, but these last 78 years have been an outlier. Prior to that, America’s appetite for land was almost insatiable. 

So why not Greenland?

The only reason that Greenland is Danish to begin with is that 1,000 years ago some Vikings bumped into it. Since then it’s been too cold for anyone else to bother with it.

And while it ultimately should be up to the Greenlandic people to decide their sovereignty, that is not the only consideration in a world where control of the Arctic could mean control of the globe.

Trump’s interests, which is to say America’s interests, may well be best served by possessing the strategic nation.

More than anything else, what is standing in the way of a big beautiful deal to buy Greenland, something the United States tried to do after occupying and protecting the large island in World War II while Denmark was under German rule, is the post-Cold-War order of the past 40 years.

Under the neo-liberal bromides of leaders with good hair, the West, led by the U.S., came to view newly-minted borders in Europe and elsewhere as sacrosanct, fixed as the firmament, immovable, which runs counter to all of human history, including America’s. 

It kind of worked for a while. There has been no third world war, but even by the mid-1990s, the former Yugoslavia was descending into violent chaos, there is no peace in the Middle East, and Russia has spent decades redrawing its border with Ukraine in blood.

To Trump, and to many Americans who think like him, if countries like Russia are expanding, if China has an eye towards doing so, then we cannot sit on the sidelines, especially if the defense of the free world is conducted on our dime.

In chess, the early 20th century saw the emergence of the hyper-modern style in which the conventional wisdom that pawns must physically occupy the all-important center of the board was tossed aside in favor of powerful pieces controlling the center from a distance.

But unlike chess, geopolitics does not have a firm and discrete set of rules. So one can see why Trump prefers the idea of physically holding space, rather than allowing it to be protected by a vague collection of Western interests.

Because we have been conditioned by the post-Cold War order, it sounds strange when Trump refers to borders as ‘artificial lines.’ But it’s absolutely true: Borders are negotiated, and you might even think of them as a kind of real estate deal.

Nobody wants to go to war over Greenland, but that is no reason not to pitch this deal to the 57,000 people who live there. America has a lot to offer, and maybe Trump can make them an offer too good to refuse.

In any event, as Americans we should not be shocked by or shy about the idea of expanding our territory. It’s not just what Trump has always done, it’s in America’s DNA.