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Owen Strickland\u2019s life as mayor of a town of 568 people between Rocky Mount and Raleigh, North Carolina, is usually small-town politics. But this particular moment has been giving his political science degree \u2013 with a concentration in national security policy and international relations \u2013 a workout.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s call to annex Greenland has roiled markets and flabbergasted half the world. But the president\u2019s supporters in conservative communities \u2013 to the degree that this issue has their attention at all \u2013 are apt to accept his political argument as genuine.<\/p>\n
Americans of either party are unlikely to know much about China\u2019s \u201cBelt and Road Initiative\u201d, a series of investments in infrastructure \u2013 ports, roads and rail across continents \u2013 to connect Chinese trade to the world, Strickland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey started about a decade ago,\u201d Strickland said. \u201cThey are attempting to make inroads worldwide, up to and including Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, areas like that. That includes the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland and the extreme north of Canada. They are doing everything they can to reduce western influence.\u201d (The Chinese investments in Greenland<\/a>, many of which have been blocked are actually part of what it hopes to call the \u201cPolar Silk Road\u201d.)<\/p>\n Strickland is one of many conservatives who believe that Trump\u2019s efforts to bring Greenland under American control are justified. \u201cI may not necessarily agree with approaches,\u201d Strickland said. \u201cBut our president is a negotiator, and he\u2019s proven where his thought processes are, and he\u2019s also proven that he\u2019s meant to be believed. Everything with our president is a negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump also alludes<\/a> to the \u201cGolden Dome<\/a>\u201d project, a system of defensive countermeasures to shield the United States from nuclear missiles, as a reason to take over Greenland. The technical elements for knocking down intercontinental ballistic missiles are both untested and classified. Accepting an assertion that the system would work as advertised and requires ownership of Greenland to function is an article of faith to supporters of Trump\u2019s push for annexation.<\/p>\n But faith is not in short supply among the converted, said Jack Watts, a Christian author in Atlanta with a large conservative social media following.<\/p>\n \u201cThe confidence that people have \u2013 particularly conservative Christian people \u2013 is that Trump has our best interest at heart,\u201d Watts said. \u201cHe\u2019s playing chess while others are playing checkers, and what he does they agree with even if they don\u2019t understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n A deal is going to happen, Watts said, \u201cand it\u2019s going to happen very quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n But for a transfer of sovereignty? Probably not, he added. \u201cI think that it will be like Guant\u00e1namo Bay, which is part of Cuba, but we have a permanent lease on it. We have an impenetrable base in Guant\u00e1namo Bay and the same thing will happen, and it won\u2019t happen near anybody that\u2019s living any place.\u201d<\/p>\n Voices to the farthest right of the political spectrum are leaning into the rhetoric of America as empire and Greenland as territory to conquer, taking a cue from White House senior adviser Stephen Miller\u2019s comments earlier this month in which he said to news anchor Jake Tapper that \u201cwe live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Walsh, host of the rightwing Daily Wire, said that taking over Greenland by force is \u201cworth talking about\u201d, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to me when people today get so offended by the very notion that we would try to acquire land, that we would try to grow the empire, and in particular, that we would try to do it by force \u2026 that\u2019s the only way that America exists in the first place.\u201d (In Davos on Thursday Trump said he would not consider military force in his quest.)<\/p>\n Some conservative leaders have been critical of the Trump administration\u2019s demands for Greenland, but more often challenge the provocative process than the underlying rationale.<\/p>\n