Revenge of the Toddler in Chief The best explanation for Trump's push on Greenland, and what it reveals about his staffers. Daniel W. Drezner Jan 20 Photo by Zahra Amiri on Unsplash In my last post on Trump’s blinkered approach to Greenland, I delineated all the ways in which the president’s desire for annexation made zero sense. I asked, “why, why is Trump burning so many bridges for such a superfluous, unnecessary, counterproductive action?” I have seen a few possible explanations floated since then. Maybe Trump really is a Russian asset, or maybe plutocratic incentives are behind it all. While neither of these explanations can be ruled out, neither of them explains why this has moved o the top of the queue. No, the evidence is pretty strong that this is happening because Trump is acting like a toddler. Why do I think Greenland is due to Trump’s immature leadership? There are a few data points. Consider this quote that the New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins got from a former NSC staffer about the difficulty with explaining Trump’s foreign policy actions: “With Trump, you have to resist the temptation to intellectualize what he is doing. They’re emotional responses, flying all over the place.” Then, last week the British tabloids served up a spicy story about how U.S. military leadership was trying real hard to prevent Trump from taking precipitous action against Greenland. Apparently, one source told the Daily Mail: ‘They have tried to distract Trump by talking about less controversial measures, such as intercepting Russian 'ghost' ships - a clandestine network of hundreds of vessels operated by Moscow to evade Western sanctions - or launching a strike on Iran.” Distraction?¹ That’s a classic toddler management technique! Then there was Trump’s ridiculous text message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store. This arose after Store texted Trump about arranging a conversation about Greenland. Here is Trump’s message in full: Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT There are a lot of ways to describe that text message — riddled with errors, misunderstanding the very essence of NATO — but the word that best captures it is “petulant.” CNN’s national security team also has a long story that includes some toddler-like reasons for Trump’s interest in Greenland: From the start, the officials said, Trump appeared fixated on Greenland’s size — or at least how large in appears on maps using the Mercator projection, which makes the island’s 836,000 square miles appear roughly the same size as Africa. Even if the island is smaller than it appears, acquiring it would amount to the largest territorial acquisition by any American president — and would make the US the largest country in area on Earth. That CNN story, however, also reveals why I will continue to rebuff all requests to revive the Toddler in Chief thread are for naught. Right after Trump won in 2024 I warned that his second-term advisors were less likely to talk about him like he’s a toddler. Even as some advisors try to create a little separation from Trump’s obsession with ownership, they can’t help but reveal their own lack of understanding: While Trump’s team is largely aligned with him on the importance of having US control of Greenland for national security reasons, many of his top advisers are not on the same page about the best way to achieve it. “We don’t want to make it a state,” one Trump adviser said. “But do we want an alliance with them? No question about it.” Psst… hey, Trump adviser… you already have an alliance with them!!! It’s called NATO — look it up sometime on the interwebs! There’s also this section from CNN’s story: It was clear Trump’s advisers wanted to ensure his feelings were known widely. A text message he sent to Norway’s prime minister over the weekend — saying he no longer feels bound “to think purely of Peace” because the Norwegian Nobel Committee did not award him the Nobel Peace Prize — was also set by US officials to multiple European ambassadors in Washington on Sunday, two sources familiar with the messages said. Perhaps the most egregious example of Trump’s staff enabling him comes from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who some folks continue to believe despite all evidence to the contrary is an adult in the room. On the Sunday shows, Bessent was asked to explain the national emergency that allowed Trump to impose his tariffs on European countries. His answer was —how to put this — equal parts absurd and enabling: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the national emergency that justified the announcement of new tariffs on eight European nations is that there would be a national emergency if tariffs were not implemented. “The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It is a strategic decision by the president. This is a geopolitical decision. And he is able to use the economic might of the U.S. to avoid a hot war. So why wouldn’t we do that.” Unfortunately, the toddler thesis continues to explain a lot of Trump’s behavior as president. The difference between his first term and this term is that there is less coverage of it in the media — because more staff are enabling rather than constraining his immature impulses. That is a very dangerous combination.