"I hope that Trump’s threat to impose escalating tariffs on European countries if they don’t hand over Greenland will finally bury “TACO Trump” wishful thinking. For TACO Trump was always based on a belief that, on some level, Trump is rational: that when the disastrous consequences of his actions hit, he backs down.

But it’s now undeniable that Trump is completely irrational. No, his obsessive thirst for Greenland isn’t about national security. Under the NATO alliance, the U.S. already had liberty to do what it wanted strategically. And as with Venezuela, any mineral deposits that Greenland possesses may be too expensive to extract to be investible.

Trump himself has told us what’s going on: he’s throwing a temper tantrum over not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize — not how he put it, but that was the gist of his text to Norway’s prime minister. And there’s no reason to disbelieve him, even though Scott Bessent says that quoting Trump’s own words is a “complete canard.”

True, beating the drum about Greenland serves multiple other purposes: deflecting attention from Renee Good’s murder, the Epstein files, and his sagging poll ratings; humiliating the Europeans, who he hates for their decency and strong democracies; and getting another testosterone rush from flexing American military muscle. But it’s mostly just a tantrum." —Actual Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman