Predictions For 2026
Prediction 1 – Trump Annexes Greenland
Trump has made such a furore about his plans to annex Greenland that he will be unable to back down, despite his reputation – TACO – for always chickening out. Trump 2.0 is all about Trump seeking to secure his place in history, as well as his unending attempts to secure his and his family's wealth, during the time he has in office. To the extent that does not seriously conflict with the interests of the ruling class, in the US, he will be allowed to do so. As I have set out before, it is in the interests of US imperialism to create a larger single market/state, just as it is in the interests of every imperialism to do so. In that respect, such development is progressive. As Trotsky put it a century ago,
“Capitalism has transferred into the field of international relations the same methods applied by it in “regulating” the internal economic life of the nations. The path of competition is the path of systematically annihilating the small and medium-sized enterprises and of achieving the supremacy of big capital. World competition of the capitalist forces means the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations by the great and greatest capitalist powers...
From which flows the perennial conflict between the principle of national self-determination, which in many cases leads to state and economic decentralization (dismemberment, separation), and the powerful centralist tendencies of imperialism which has at its disposal the state organization and the military power. True, a national-separatist movement frequently finds support in the imperialist intrigues of a neighbouring state. This support, however, can become decisive only through the application of military force. And as soon as matters reach an armed conflict between two imperialist organizations, the new state boundaries will not be decided on the basis of the national principle, but on the basis of the reciprocal relation of military forces...
The right of national self-determination cannot he excluded from the proletarian peace programme; but it cannot claim absolute importance. On the contrary, it is delimited for us by the converging, profoundly progressive tendencies of historical development. If this “right” must be – through revolutionary force – counter-posed to the imperialist methods of centralization which enslave weak and backward peoples and mush the hearths of national culture, then on the other hand the proletariat cannot allow the “national principle” to get in the way of the irresistible and deeply progressive tendency of modern economic life towards a planned organization throughout our continent, and further, all over the globe. Imperialism is the capitalist-thievish expression of this tendency of modern economy to tear itself completely away from the idiocy of national narrowness, as it did previously with regard to local and provincial confinement. While fighting against the imperialist form of economic centralization, socialism does not at all take a stand against the particular tendency as such but, on the contrary, makes the tendency its own guiding principle.”
Greenland has a population of less than 60,000. Rationally, it belongs as part of a North American, single market and state. As Marxists, as Trotsky sets out in the above work, we do not, as a result, support the forcible annexation of such small states by powerful imperialist powers, but seek a voluntary merger. As I set out last year, US imperialism could simply offer to pay every Greenlander several million dollars to agree to such a merger, just as, in the past, it would have been simpler for Argentina to have bought out a few hundred Falkland Islanders. We would then have seen whether the concern of Britain was the inalienable rights of the islanders, or its own continued imperialist interests, and similarly, now, with Denmark/EU, in relation to Greenland.
US imperialism could continue to station troops on Greenland as part of NATO, and it could buy the rights to mine the vast amount of minerals on the island. But that does not meet the needs either of Trump or of US imperialism. With a population of less than 60,000, it does not represent any significant extension of the US single market, which is the driving force of modern imperialism, based on large-scale industrial capital. However, its mineral assets are significant to US imperialism, in relation to the need for rare earths and energy. This aspect of colonialism, and the role of merchant capital remains, and, as I have pointed out, over the last year or so, the US and UK have reverted, in large part, to colonialism, in proportion as their role as modern imperialist powers has shrunk, and been overtaken by China and other industrialising economies. Its no surprise that it is the UK government that has backed Trump's colonial land grab in Gaza and Venezuela. Trump wants to be another Andrew Johnson who, in buying Alaska from Russia, massively increased the size of the United States. Remember that, at the time, despite the cheapness of the purchase, it was described as “Seward's Folly”.
As with the renaming of The Gulf Of Mexico, The Kennedy Centre, the Monroe Doctrine, and so on, Trump is focussed on making his mark. But, in respect of Greenland, that is in no way contrary to the interests of US imperialism either. He is not interested in renting land from Denmark on Greenland, but on owning it himself – both in the sense of it being part of the US, but, also, personally, as he will no doubt have an eye on the potential for his own real estate development there, just as with Gaza. As I have pointed out for many years, the EU is the biggest imperialist competitor to the US. That reality is only obscured by the post-war alliance between US and EU imperialism, in NATO, in opposition to the USSR.
In that post-war period, Western Europe was never in danger of a military incursion by the USSR/Warsaw Pact, other than as a consequence of a global war. The USSR was hard pressed to keep the population of the other Warsaw pact countries suppressed, let alone venture into western Europe. US troops more performed the role, in Europe, of being ready to suppress any internal socialist revolution. The security of Western Europe rapidly sprung from the much higher living standards of its workers, not from its own military might, or the role of NATO. Indeed, it was those higher living standards that acted as the main factor in undermining the Stalinist regimes in the East, as their workers looked in envy at their western counterparts. As Marx had put it in The Communist Manifesto, it was the low prices that acted as the battering ram that brought down all Chinese walls.
Trump's argument that it was US military spending to finance NATO that keeps Europe safe is a fallacy. In conditions where no such military strike from the USSR was likely, where the prison house of Stalinism offered no attraction for the large majority of Western European workers, the spending by European nations on their military was more than adequate, especially in an era of nuclear weapons, where any such war in Europe would inevitably have resulted in nuclear destruction of all parties. The main role of NATO was not protecting Western Europe, but was projecting the global presence of US imperialism. In doing that, it also acted in the interests of the subordinate EU imperialism too. The consequence was that European imperialism, however, became dependent on US imperialism, and on US military production.
This too offered a quid pro quo. EU imperialism spent a much smaller proportion of its GDP on weapons, and so more on its own capital accumulation, US imperialism benefitted from the economies of scale for its arms industries, as Europe spent more than 60% of its arms budget on US supplied weapons. All fine until US hegemony falters, the global economy fragments, and the competing interests of different imperialist blocs re-emerge, including the competing interests of EU imperialism with those of US imperialism. For EU imperialism, if US imperialism is to retrench – symbolised by Trump's America First doctrine – and, if the EU is to, then, have to spend more on its own military, it may as well do so on its own terms, and to meet its own specific interests, not those of US imperialism.
That is the message of Draghi and other EU politicians as I set out last year. The inevitable imperialist logic is for the EU to further, and more rapidly consolidate itself into a centralized state, along the lines of the US. That is the means by which, also, the question asked by Kissinger, in the past of, “If I want to speak to Europe, who do I ring?”, is also answered. But, in the meantime, the EU has tied itself into a pointless, forever war against Russia in Ukraine. The EU is led, given the current continued dependence on the US to seek to cajole Trump into US military supplies for Zelensky's corrupt regime.
So, despite all of the hot air from EU and British politicians about the consequence of Trump annexing Greenland, he will do so, bloodlessly, and without any meaningful opposition from the EU. As he and his cronies have said, what would the Europeans do, go to war with the US?! Of course, not. Nor will it spell the immediate end of NATO. For so long as the EU persists in its doomed backing of Zelensky and his corrupt regime, they will continue to depend on US military support, and that means continued subordination within NATO.
For European workers, of course, we have no such interests. We have no interest in supporting the imperialist conflict being fought out in Eastern Ukraine, which is also, undermining the economy of the EU and Britain. The best means of defeating the corrupt regimes of both Zelensky and Putin, is for their workers to rise up and overthrow them, and, in that, we should seek to support those workers against their own ruling classes. We are proponents of class war, not the war of nation against nation. We certainly have no interest in a war against US imperialism to protect the interests of Danish imperialism, any more than we had any interest in supporting the war of British imperialism against Argentina over the Falklands. That does not mean we sanction the actions of Galtieri or of Trump. It is never a question of siding with one or the other, as the campists would have us believe. We are for the independent, third camp of the proletariat and its class war against the ruling class of both camps.
Another reason that Trump seeks to annex Greenland, is, also, to further encircle Canada. Canada, also, should, rationally, be a part of a single, unified North American state, but, unlike Greenland, it is not so easily resolved as by the US simply buying out its population. A military conflict to annex Canada seems unlikely, but encircling it, and pressuring it by increased tariffs and so on, could bring its leaders to the table, and, if not these leaders, then others. More likely, after Trump annexes Greenland, and invades Cuba, will be military incursions into Mexico, the pretext of drugs, again, being a convenient cover. For trump, drugs and drug smuggling, and other associated criminal gang activity is playing the same role that “anti-Semitism” played for the growing authoritarianism and Bonapartism under Biden, and Starmer et al.
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