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Mark Porubcansky

Foreign Concept

Forget Greenland. Let’s buy North Korea.

By Mark Porubcansky

Aug. 26, 2019

Buying the world’s biggest island would be a very splashy play. Really, what could possibly go wrong?

Trump, Kim

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Forget Greenland. Let’s buy North Korea.

By Mark Porubcansky

Aug. 26, 2019

<h1>Forget Greenland. Let’s buy North Korea.</h1>
<p class="a-entry-byline">By <span class="a-entry-author">Mark Porubcansky</span></p>
<p class="a-entry-date">Aug.  26, 2019</p>
 <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Maybe you think that shopping for new U.S. territory is rather 19</span><span style="font-weight: 400">th</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> century. Or maybe you think it’s just fine. But after it became clear last week that President Trump wants to Make American Bigger, everyone seems to be weighing in. </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/23/trump-greenland-buy-united-kingdom"><span style="font-weight: 400">Buy Britain</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">? Have </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/denmark-offers-to-buy-us"><span style="font-weight: 400">Denmark buy us</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">? You might have your own idea!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Here’s one more. Buy North Korea.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It’s possible, of course, that North Korea’s not for sale. That would be too bad. But you don’t know unless you ask – and this might actually be easier. The president seems more comfortable with dictators like Kim Jong Un than a bunch of prickly Greenlanders and Danes. He did forget to ask Greenlanders what they thought. That wouldn’t be a problem — nobody asks North Koreans their opinion of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">anything</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">You do have to admit that Trump has an eye for a real estate deal: Buying the world’s biggest island would be a very splashy play. While North Korea is much smaller, what it lacks in size it makes up in connoisseur-level craziness. For the more practical-minded, Greenland does have great untapped mineral wealth; but so does North Korea. Greenland is strategically located for the coming geopolitical competition with Russian and China over the Arctic; North Korea borders both those countries and a U.S. presence there would drive them nuts. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Besides, worries about North Korea’s nuclear program would be over. And imagine what a huge weapon the 51</span><span style="font-weight: 400">st</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> state of North Korea would be in Trump’s economic war with China. If the president does have the authority to order U.S. businesses out of China — as he claims he does — they could move right next door!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But wait, there’s more. Trump has a thing about loyalty. North Koreans have mastered public displays of it. They have decades of experience with Kim, his “Dear Leader” father and “Great General” grandfather. They could relax after their deliverance by the Great Dealmaker. They might have heard that the U.S. is a wild, dangerous place, but no U.S. leader has had his half-brother killed with a nerve agent in an international airport, or musicians – </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">musicians</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> – reportedly </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-defector-anti-aircraft-guns-execution-kim-jong-un-killed-sex-slaves-pyongyang-porn-film-a7959851.html"><span style="font-weight: 400">executed with anti-aircraft guns</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.  </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Think of the rallies Trump could have in Pyongyang! (Then imagine one in </span><a href="https://visitgreenland.com/destinations/nuuk/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Nuuk</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, population 17,000). Plus, given the chance, a lot of North Koreans probably would be quite pitiless business people. Russia’s post-Soviet oligarchs have shown that there’s no capitalist like a former communist. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Greenland does have valuable </span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f418bb86-bdb2-11e9-89e2-41e555e96722"><span style="font-weight: 400">rare earth minerals</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, as well as </span><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-greenland-gold-rush-promise-and-pitfalls-of-greenlands-energy-and-mineral-resources/"><span style="font-weight: 400">iron, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, uranium and oil.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> But some studies suggest a </span><a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/billions-ground-race-harvest-north-koreas-rare-earth-reserves-50137"><span style="font-weight: 400">single site in North Korea may hold double the known world reserves of rare earth oxides</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. North Korea </span><a href="https://qz.com/1004330/north-korea-is-sitting-on-trillions-of-dollars-on-untapped-wealth-and-its-neighbors-want-a-piece-of-it/"><span style="font-weight: 400">has lots of coal (which Trump loves), iron, gold, zinc, copper and other minerals</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The Arctic is indeed opening up. Instead of playing defense, though, you could really shake up Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping by putting U.S. listening stations and other assets on their doorsteps. One reason China has never wanted to see the Korean peninsula unified is the possibility of having a U.S. ally – much less Uncle Sam himself — on its border. Putin is paranoid about being surrounded. He already has NATO members on his northwest border in the Baltics; suddenly he’d have the United States on a small stretch of his eastern border. That would shut up the whiners who think Trump is soft on Russia.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Earlier this year, </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/27/trump-on-north-korea-potential-if-kim-jong-un-agrees-to-denuclearize.html"><span style="font-weight: 400">Trump tweeted about North Korea’s ‘AWESOME’ economic potential</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, so we know he’s a fan. And he tells us he’s developed a great relationship with Kim, who sends him "beautiful" letters — while firing ballistic missiles into the ocean (which apparently no longer bothers the president). In any case, there’d be no more North Korean nuclear program. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Trump could develop a low-cost factory floor in North Korea to challenge China. North Koreans are used to working for next to nothing — and you really think they’d quibble about workers’ rights? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On the other hand, Greenland’s 58,000 people have been coddled by Scandinavian social democracy, including free universal health care. They already have Medicare for all. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When you stop to think about it, North Korea seems to be more Trump’s kind of place.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">You’re probably thinking, wait: What would happen to Kim? What about the cost of taking on 25 million impoverished North Koreans? What about Trump’s aversion to opening America’s doors to more outsiders?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Good questions. But not insurmountable. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">First, we’d be bringing the United States to North Koreans, so they could stay put. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">And how about offering Kim a job in the Trump Organization? Don, Jr. and Eric would love working with dad’s young protege. Maybe make him the star of a resurrected “Celebrity Apprentice?” Of course, you’d have to make sure he didn’t get just too enthusiastic about firing people. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Then, finally, about the cost. As last week’s </span><a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/54918"><span style="font-weight: 400">deficit projections</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> show, Trump doesn’t care about adding to the U.S. debt. And we always can figure out a way to have the North Koreans themselves pay some of the costs of his next big idea. As we’ve learned about the border wall, Mexico </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">loves</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> the concept. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Really, what could possibly go wrong?</span></p>


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