CANADA

DONALD TRUMP’S OFFER to buy Greenland has been met with a counter-offer by the Danish autonomous territory, to buy the United States, minus California.

“The reality is, that with all its mineral resources, Greenland is probably in a better position to buy the US, than the US, with all its debt, is to buy Greenland,” says sovereignty analyst Wellington Hardyard, whose Copenhagen-based firm, Title, sells land throughout the solar system. “The Danes would have to be involved, of course, and they would want guarantees on illegal immigration, I’d say. They used to be so accommodating back in the day, but bleak experience has dragged them to the right and they are not so welcoming of outsiders any more. They – and the European Union – would not want the US to be a back door for all and sundry to come to Denmark and beyond. That’s probably why California is out of the offer. And then there’s that enormous debt that Washington has accumulated. Greenland would probably want to pay that down by a program of asset stripping. They’d have to. But still, The Donald ought to listen.”