What does a nearly-completed wind farm have in common with a eugenics-style program of forced contraception?
Donald J. Trump, of course.
The rabbit hole that connects windpower to eugenics appeared in a Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) report published on the 27th of August. In it, two journalists uncovered a Trump-linked “covert influence campaign” targeting the Greenlandic people. The report alleged at least three unnamed interlopers were probing the public’s appetite for regime change. DR was unable to establish if the mysterious interlopers were freelancing or on an “official mission.”
Who they are might indicate what they were doing. But DR didn’t name names. That gap was quickly filled by The New York Times. As The Spectator noted, they identified the likeliest candidates for two of the three main interlopers:
One, businessman Tom Dans, was an Arctic advisor during the first Trump term and runs a nonprofit promoting closer ties with Greenland. The other, Drew Horn, was a Republican advisor and now leads a rare earth minerals company. Each have made visits to Greenland since January, when Trump was inaugurated. Both America and Denmark agree that the men in question were acting as private citizens, but Washington has not denied their informal connections to the administration nor disavowed their purported mission.
And what exactly was their “purported mission”?
Roland Oliphant of The Telegraph spoke to DR’s Niels Fastrup and Lisbeth Quass about their months-long investigation which, they say, uncovered “indisputable skullduggery”:
“What has been described to us by sources… is a clandestine or covert operation designed to create a kind of Greenlandic liberation movement that could tear apart the relationship between Denmark and Greenland, and thus pave the way for a US takeover of Greenland.”
The reporters found “at least three” Trump-connected Americans probing Greenland for soft spots and angles to exploit. They also looked for potential collaborators:
The first man, they say, arrived in Greenland on a snowy day earlier this year on a mission to compile a list of Greenlandic citizens who support Trump’s plans to take over the island and who could be potential recruits to a secessionist movement across the territory and Denmark. He also compiled a list of Greenlanders who might oppose such a takeover….
An enemies list? That’s completely on-brand … as is this:
[A]t least one source told Fastrup and Quass that the man also asked locals for stories that could be used to cast Denmark in a poor light in US media (scandals that made the list included the sterilisation of indigenous women and the forced relocation of children for education in Denmark, both of which are real historic grievances).
Nothing sounds more plausible than a Trump-connected dude trying to dig up dirt on someone (or some country) currently caught in Trump’s crosshairs. And there is some dirt to dig up in Greenland. Forced contraception is among the indigenous issues that loom large in Denmark’s semi-autonomous territory.
In January, France 24 produced a 36-minute mini-doc on the traumatized women who now “demand justice” after years of enforced silence. Whether or not that could be spun into Greenlanders demanding regime change is an open question. It’s domestic utility, on the other hand, seems clearer. Trump could cast himself as a liberator against one of the most durable boogeymen in American political history—the socialist. He’d have a field day slamming Danish “socialists” for implanting IUDs without consent or explanation. FOX News might even find a way to link Danish socialism to Zohran Mamdani.
Whatever the sales pitch is—that is, IF there even is a sales pitch—it will become yet another divisive distraction and yet another opportunity to either root for him or root against him. We’re stuck in a professional wrestling match that never ends.
But the Danes may have struck a preemptive blow against Trump’s alleged scheme when, on the same day the DR story broke, Prime Minister Frederiksen issued a long-awaited apology to the victims of Denmark’s eugenics-style campaign of forced contraception. Per the BBC:
During the 1960s and 70s thousands of Inuit women and girls as young as 12 were fitted with contraceptive devices, as part of a birth-control programme administered by Danish doctors.
The scale of the birth-control programme was first brought to light in 2022, by an investigative podcast called Spiralkampagnen - the coil campaign.
In the past few years, many women have come forward to say they were fitted with an intra-uterine device (IUD) without their knowledge or consent.
In announcing the formal apology, Prime Minister Frederiksen said:
"On behalf of Denmark, I would like to say sorry. We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility.”
The timing of the apology could very-well be a coincidence. Maybe it was planned for weeks or months and it just-so-happened that DR hit “send” that day. Or DR could’ve timed their story to match the announcement. It’s also likely that DR tipped them off, if only by seeking on-the-record reactions to allegations in a forthcoming story. The Prime Minister probably knew the story was coming.
Whatever the circumstances, the reality is nothing seems “coincidental” when Trump is involved. He’s always after something. And he’s constantly massaging and manipulating people into giving him what he wants—like attention.
What’s harder to ascertain is whether this was a botched covert maneuver or if it was designed to look covert-ish, but intended to be “discovered” … kinda like a severed horse’s head in a Hollywood executive’s bed. Either way, they definitely took the “c” out of “covert”:
Two other Americans are said to have held frequent meetings with local politicians and business leaders in an apparent attempt to build relationships that could be leveraged in the event of an American takeover.
Not quite on par with the CIA’s history-changing “PsyOp” campaign to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddegh, but, given a Wall Street Journal report back in May, it’s also not easily dismissed:
The U.S. is stepping up its intelligence-gathering efforts regarding Greenland, drawing America’s spying apparatus into President Trump’s campaign to take over the island, according to two people familiar with the effort.
Several high-ranking officials under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a “collection emphasis message” to intelligence-agency heads last week. They were directed to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and attitudes on American resource extraction on the island.
The classified message asked agencies, whose tools include surveillance satellites, communications intercepts and spies on the ground, to identify people in Greenland and Denmark who support U.S. objectives for the island.
The key phrase here is “collection emphasis message” … which, as the Journal explains, has specific implications:
A collection-emphasis message helps set intelligence-agency priorities, directing resources and attention to high-interest targets. The Greenland order, which went to agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, underscores the administration’s apparent commitment to seeking control of the self-governing island.
At the time, Tulsi Gabbard huffed and puffed about “deep state” leakers “who seek to undermine the President,” but didn’t challenge the veracity of information leaked to the Journal.
Also at the time, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen “voiced serious concerns” about the report and told reporters at an “informal meeting of EU foreign ministers” that “it worries me greatly because we do not spy on friends." He vowed to summon the acting ambassador to “see if we can confirm this information, which is somewhat disturbing."
More disturbing has been Trump’s repeated refusal to rule out the use of military force to secure Greenland. He reiterated that de facto threat just two days before the Wall Street Journal story dropped in May. And that came shortly after JD Vance’s visit to Greenland at the end of March. Said Vance:
“Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. 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.”
Vance made that statement on March 28th.
A couple days later Trump refused to rule out using military force.
Then comes the Wall Street Journal exposé.
And then, just over a month after the Journal broke the CIA story, French President Emmanuel Macron inserted himself into the simmering stew when he paid an official visit to Greenland on June 15th and drew a line in the snow. Per AP:
“In a few words: everybody in France, the European Union thinks that Greenland is not to be sold, not to be taken,” he said during a news conference, applauded by the local crowd.
“The situation in Greenland is clearly a wakeup call for all Europeans. Let me tell you very directly that you’re not alone,” Macron added.
Let’s take a minute to absorb the leader of France issuing a “wakeup call” to Europeans who, he said, must stand together to face the territorial threat posed by … the United States.
Diplomatically speaking, that’s nuts.
Now fast-forward to the wake of DR’s PsyOp story. This time, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot made the trip to Greenland. It included a rather conspicuous visit to a “French military ship moored in Nuuk” during his two-day show of “support for the sovereignty and freedom of Denmark and Greenland.” Said Barrot:
“You’ll not make a nation great again by imposing yourself on your neighbours and allies. You’ll make a nation great again by contributing to the freedom of the world and to the ability of friends and partners to thrive and to live in peace and prosperity.”
It’s not quite an internecine war among NATO members … yet. But it is a damn odd situation when one member of an alliance (France) responds on behalf another member of the alliance (Denmark) to rebuke the territorial designs of the alliance’s most powerful member (United States). It’s odder still when private citizens are doing bad Kermit Roosevelt impersonations to gin-up support for annexation or revolution in a sworn ally’s backyard.
Frankly, the whole damn thing isn’t only odd … it’s also funny. You’re sure to get exasperated laughs if you mention “Trump’s covert campaign to foment revolution in Greenland” to friends and colleagues. And yet, none of it is surprising. Not really. Rather, it’s all plausible. Instead of denying it, he’ll probably end-up talking about it at length and patting himself on the back. A good rule of thumb is to remind yourself that anything that looks like “a bug” to you is probably his idea of “a feature.” The fact that his critics keep on pointing to his bugs made be why he gets away with having some many destructive features.
Mimicry appears to be one such feature.
Trump consciously aped Andrew Jackson during his first stint behind “the resolute desk.” Reporting indicates that he’s doing it again … with William McKinley. Now we know why switching Denali back to Mount McKinley was among the first things he did. Of course, McKinley was a tariff enthusiast. But McKinley also oversaw the “acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, American Samoa, Hawai’i and Puerto Rico!
Is that where his “Canadian Merger Mania” comes from?
And the Panama Canal?
How does his Gaza Riviera plan fit into this?
Would Greenland be enough … or just the beginning?
Is any of this actually real?
Or is this a narcissistic misadventure?
Are we overreacting to a predictable flight of fancy?
Well, that all went out the window when another news item t-boned the Overt Ops story at the intersection of Trump’s obsessions. Here’s the headline:
US private equity firm buys Ørsted shares at offer price - agrees to capital plan
It’s rather mundane, actually. Hell, private equity is buying anything and everything these days, including local HVAC business in Boise, Idaho. So, now its gobbling up windmills. In this case, it’s a modest New York-based firm with $300 million under management that jumped in when the stock was 87% off its 2021 high.
Seems legit enough. Happens every day, right?
But Ørsted isn’t just a windpower company. It’s one of the world’s largest windpower companies. It also happens to be a Danish company. In fact, the State of Denmark owns a majority (50.1%) of its stock. And that stock went into freefall when Donald J. Quixote terminated Ørsted’s massive new wind farm—”Revolution Wind”—off the coast of Rhode Island. The 80%-completed project promised to service 350,000 homes when it came online next year.
Trump pulled the plug.
Revolution Wind was supposedly stopped due to ”unspecified” national security issues. That move predictably cratered a stock already struggling from a months-long barrage of Trump’s anti-windpower moves, including the regime’s recently-announced “national security” investigation into the windpower industry. That came almost a week before he targeted Revolution Wind. And yes, the windpower industry is now officially a “national security” threat and yes, this is “not The Onion.”
To the contrary, this is serious business for a Danish pension fund also invested in Ørsted:
The development has significant implications for not only Ørsted but also Danish asset owners and their outlook for US offshore wind. AkademikerPension, a Danish pension fund with over $24bn in assets under management, is one such investor.
That makes it a double-whammy, hitting both the State of Denmark and Danish institutional investors smack-dab on the bottom line. Yes, this is all circumstantial. No, I’m not privy to anonymous sources familiar with the President’s thinking. But it does appear that Trump used the pretext of national security to specifically tank an ally’s state-owned company. Put another way, he used the power of the Presidency to place the equivalent of a severed head in Denmark’s bed. He used the President’s national security power and some paper-thin Executive Orders to go “Full-Roy Cohn” on a member of NATO.
He just screwed them.
By the way, Denmark already grants the US military access to Greenland’s tundra. But that’s not nearly enough for the self-styled reincarnation of William McKinley. He’s certainly playing the part. He talks like an expansionist and if appearances are correct, he’s also demonstrating his willingness to manipulate markets for profit and for power and probably for revenge.
Revenge makes sense. Most explanations of his quixotic obsession with windmills lead back to those turbines Scotland planted just off the coast of his Turnberry Golf Resort. He’s certainly petty enough to turn a specific grudge into a global war against windpower. Surprisingly, revenge hasn’t occurred to the chief investment officer of AkademikerPension:
“As investors, we are used to accounting for risk, but Trump’s apparent hostility towards offshore wind is different, because we cannot discern any underlying logic”, Anders Schelde told Net Zero Investor.
Logic isn’t the problem. There is a logic. The problem is that there are no discernable ethics. Ironically, Schelde may have stumbled into the “underlying logic” when he assessed the impact of Trump’s apparent capriciousness. Said Schelde, “In my view, US offshore wind is effectively dead.”
Not coincidentally, an “effectively dead” windpower industry might be the main goal of Trump’s second term. Revolution Wind was just one of a dozen wind projects he put on the chopping block during the final week of August. Well-over a half-billion dollars of funding was yanked from projects in eleven states. And he’s planning on killing more in the coming weeks.
But that’s not all.
He’s also handed the Departments of Interior and Energy over to the oil industry. He’s gutted the EPA’s pollution controls. He’s ordered a Stalinesque removal of climate change from every nook and cranny of the US Government. And he’s removed the environment and climate from the national conversation.
Add to that his long-standing grudge against windmills and it’s entirely possible he wasn’t targeting Denmark at all. It could just be a coincidence and Denmark’s investment in Ørsted may simply be collateral damage from his sustained attack on anything and everything that threatens fossil fuels.
The bigger picture (or underlying logic) is the big upside Big Oil gets from Trump killing off America’s rapidly-expanding, innovation-driven renewable industry. And he’s doing it while simultaneously hyper-scaling hydrocarbon-burning data centers. That’s a massive spike in demand for Big Oil. And that carbon-spewing cocktail may be one of the greatest gifts ever given to the oil industry … and to the Saudis.
Big Oil and OPEC’s petrostates would love to burn past the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) projection of peak demand in 2028. A hyper-scaling America bereft of renewables will burn a lot of oil and a lot of gas, folks. Trump may have just given the Saudis five-to-ten more years to acquire non-oil related assets and diversify for the post-peak demand world.
Maybe Trump is just doing his paymasters’ bidding.
Also not coincidentally, Saudi and Emirati money can easily be laundered into the ballooning Trump family fortune though crypto investments … and Trump already has a long, remunerative relationship with the Saudis, in particular.
Maybe a long grudge that started just offshore from his golf course in Scotland has finally proven valuable beyond even his dreams of avarice.
Maybe Ørsted was just in the wrong place (off the Atlantic coast) at the wrong time (Trump’s second Presidency).
Maybe … but I’m not buying it.
Roy Cohn’s acolyte never passes up an opportunity to harass, harangue, intimidate, punish or sue. He loves retribution. And he loves to make deals. He wants to please his inner McKinley and make “a great deal” for Greenland. But Denmark won’t budge. So, you do the equivalent of sending a couple goons around to say, “It’d be a shame if something happened to your beautiful country.”
Instead of tossing a brick through an expensive window, the stock of a state-owned, industry-leading windpower company gets tanked by presidential edict.
And if that happens to cripple Big Oil’s competition in the United States?
That’s another in a string of happy coincidences for Trump and his OPEC+ friends.
It even worked out for ValueWorks. Thanks to the knock-on effect of Trump’s appetite for expansion, the modest firm’s “buy on the dip” was “large enough to make it among Ørsted’s top-40 shareholder” by day’s end. And it plans on buying more, too.
Said Chief Investment Officer Charles Lemonides:
“Dark times are an opportunity for those with the wherewithal to survive through those dark times.”
There is no denying the plausibility of that. It might even explain why people with oodles of “wherewithal” support and surround a President with a demonstrable knack for casting darkness over markets and industries.