The reflecting pool is green with algae, ducklings are dying, and Tr*mp somehow still isn’t done taking his revenge on marine life. In an explosive New Yorker report from last week, the despot’s real plans for a Greenland takeover were revealed, and they weren’t pretty. They were, of course, incredibly stupid.
After a series of epic failures, including the Tr*mp administration f’ing around and fully finding out about how easy it is for Iran to mess with American trade via the Strait of Hormuz, Greenland seems to be back in the president’s sights.
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We know that Tr*mp’s falling out with NATO was, in his retelling, a response to his bizarre fixation with the island. “We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said, ‘Bye-bye!’” he explained months ago.
The plan Tr*mp proposed to annex the Danish island may have fallen out of the headlines, but it’s apparently still something the administration wants to pursue. And if you find yourself asking “how?” and “with what money?”, you’re asking the wrong questions.
What the New Yorker piece is concerned with is the “why” of it all.
There’s the real estate potential, as well as the island’s location between the US and the Eastern powers of China and Russia. In terms of precious metals, the late right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk said last year that Greenland could “be the new Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, Permian Basin, Marcellus Shale, and the Balkan, all mixed into one.”
But that’s not what appeals to Tr*mp. According to Tr*mp loyalist and chair of the United States Arctic Research Commission Tom Dans, it’s all about the shrimp.
Um… excuse me?
“My view is that the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce,” he told the New Yorker, “and cut out the middleman, and keep it from China—and you could bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster.”
Yup. Apparently it’s not the country’s land or rare earth minerals that the administration wants—it’s a chance to bring a seafood chain back to its former glory.
With the (completely preventable) screwworm crisis threatening livestock and the Strait of Hormuz possibly slowing down trade further, betting on seafood futures seems just ludicrous enough to appeal to the Tr*mp administration at this point.
As you’ll probably recall, the seafood chain—once a thriving fast casual American dining staple—hit its peak in 2016 after Beyoncé’s Lemonade shout-out.
A few years later, Queen Bey once again called out Red Lobster, this time with a pro-LGBTQ+ twist. “How you identify and see yourself is your human right, who you make love to and take that a** to Red Lobster is your human right,” she said at the 2019 GLAAD awards.
But in recent years, the chain has seen trouble. After declaring bankruptcy two years ago, Red Lobster was taken over by a private equity firm that now wants to make the restaurant “the most AI-forward restaurant company that exists.”
Because Red Lobster is a private equity company, Tr*mp can’t purchase stocks. What he can do—and what he has done—is loosen restrictions on private equity in increasingly shady ways.
While it might look like a good thing for companies to be bailed out by private equity firms, it’s actually a dangerous sign. In the case of Red Lobster, the new owners’ first move was to sell the land right out from under the restaurant locations. Because of that, the chain is now “saddled in debt” and they’re blaming it on free shrimp. Meanwhile, as Elizabeth Warren explained last year, Tr*mp potentially gets richer off the private equity “corporate raiders” that cash out in the process.
These companies have “mastered the art of the cover-up,” Warren says. Honestly, that sounds a little too familiar to us by now. While Ivanka and her husband are doing their own island grift in Albania, Tr*mp seems to be following that same tactic on a larger scale—all to get a sweet taste of that private equity all-you-can-eat shrimp.
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