Maybe Donald Trump has a spare half a trillion down the back of his White House couch to buy Greenland.
But wouldn’t that just pay the interest on the $22 trillion national debt?
But amid all that incredulity that a country could just buy another country, or land, then frankly…
They don’t know the history of the USA.
The 49th State, Alaska, bought from Russia for $7.2million in 1867 ($109m today) was considered a huge white elephant by many Americans.
The Russians had been looking to get rid of it after running up big costs in the fruitless Crimean War and had first sounded out the British.
Who thought it a wilderness too.
It wasn’t… there was gold in them thar swamps and oil in the fields.
And before that there was the Louisiana Purchase from the French of 828,000sq miles which doubled the size of the country,
Now Louisiana was a great bit bigger than New Orleans and the bayou back in 1804.
It stretched from the Gulf of Mexico and swallowed up part of 15 modern-day US states.
Including Colorado where there’s still a French influence and much more besides. Read my review in Go West.
And the Louisiana Purchase even included slithers of two Canadian provinces.
Not bad value for $15m ($220m in today’s money).
And again it was a case of its owners, in this instance France, and Napoleon, needing money.
In his case to wage war with Britain.
Then there was Florida, a swamp back in 1819 for $5m ($90m). About the price of a row of houses on South Beach now.
Now not playing Trump’s game, and we live in very different times now…
But if Greenland is a $700m a year drain of a dominion on Denmark as he says…?
Then with all his powers of persuasions in completing the deal.
Now there couldn’t possibly be oil there, could there?
So you want to see how you can get to Greenland…?
A cruise is probably best. Check out www.greenlandtours.com. Or www.global.hurtigruten.com. And http://www.visitgreenland.com.
And if you want to know a bit more about Donald Trump’s fellow New Yorker and the original NY businessman Alexander Hamilton https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/08/21/old-new-york-hamilton/
