'President Trump is trying to replace the UN', says Belgian FM

Euronews

By Sasha Vakulina & Estelle Nilsson-Julien

Published on 20/01/2026 - 

US President Donald Trump is trying to supplant the United Nations with his supposedly transitional "Board of Peace", Maxime Prévot told Euronews.

Speaking to Euronews at Davos on Tuesday, Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prévot accused United States President Donald Trump of seeking to "replace the United Nations' system" with his transitional "Board of Peace", a body ostensibly set up to administer post-war Gaza.

While it remains unclear exactly how many leaders have been asked to join the body, Prévot told Euronews that Belgium has not been invited, decrying the project as “totally unacceptable” and adding that Trump was trying to "create his own personal board".

Trump began inviting world leaders to join the Board of Peace on 16 January in exchange for a $1 billion fee, stating that the body aimed to foster “a bold new approach to resolving global conflict".

The newly assertive positioning of the Board of Peace has sparked major speculation around whether the body could become a rival to the UN Security Council, which was created in the wake of World War II.

'Not the way Belgium intends to go'

Acknowledging the UN's shortcomings, Prévot stressed the importance of reforming it from the inside, pointing to the UN80 initiative, which "already aims to merge certain agencies to create new opportunities for the UN to increase its efficiency".

Prévot also pointed to the possibility of "creating new opportunities" within the UN's Security Council for African, Latin American, and Asian countries.

"Defending international law is crucial for a medium-sized country like Belgium," he stated, adding that "creating something new in order to bypass the United Nations is certainly not the way Belgium intends to go".

The US is expected to share details about the Board of Peace's membership list in the coming days, with speculation abounding around whether the announcement will occur during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, underway in Davos until 23 January.

Trump's Board of Peace plans have further inflamed tensions between the US and its European partners, which are already running high due to Trump stepping up his threats to seize Greenland in recent days and refusing to rule out the use of military force.

On Monday, a French official close to President Emmanuel Macron said that despite receiving an invitation, France did not plan to join the Board of Peace “at this stage”. The official stressed that plans for such a body raised questions around respect for the principles and structure of the United Nations.

In response to the news on Monday that Macron was unlikely to sign France up, Trump told reporters: "Nobody wants him because he's going to be out of office very soon".

“I'll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he'll join,” he said, “but he doesn't have to join.”

Europe needs to strengthen its autonomy

Prévot told Euronews that Europe should prioritise strengthening its strategic autonomy, specifically in the military, technology and energy sectors.

"We can no longer depend blindly on the security provided by the US", he said, warning that "otherwise this could lead to a weakened Europe.”

He highlighted that Belgium has been working to fix its reputation as a "bad pupil in the classroom" after consistently failing to meet NATO spending targets.

"We achieved the 2% GDP target last year, and we will continue to increase our spending for the defence sector," Prévot said.

Trump Invites Putin, Netanyahu to Join Peace Panel Mocked as ‘Board of Billionaires and War Criminals’

“This is a board of colonial administration, run by war criminals and kleptocrats,” said one critic. “It has zero legitimacy.”

Three members of the executive board of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace—US Mideast Envoy Steve Witkoff (left), US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (center), and Trump adviser Jared Kushner (right)—attend talks on Ukraine in Hallandale Beach, Florida on November 30, 2025.
(Photo by Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jan 19, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Criticism of President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” mounted Monday after the White House invited controversial figures—including two leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes—to join the body tasked with supporting the management and reconstruction of Gaza.

Among Trump’s latest invitees to the board are Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Lukashenko has repressively ruled Belarus for over 30 years and supports Putin’s ongoing invasion and occupation of Ukraine, for which the Russian president is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes. Netanyahu is also wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Trump—who has bombed 10 countries over his two terms in office—will chair the organization, whose executive board will also include former British leader and alleged war criminal Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Mideast Envoy Steve Witkoff, World Bank President Ajay Banga, billionaire businessman Marc Rowan, real estate investor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner—who has publicly called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza—and others.

“As if the people of Gaza have not suffered enough,” Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said on Bluesky. “But Blair’s inclusion confirms the obvious—this is a board of colonial administration, run by war criminals and kleptocrats. It has zero legitimacy.”

Leaders of countries including Argentina, Canada, Egypt, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, and Turkey were also invited to join the board. So was the European Union, with whom US relations are strained over issues including Trump’s tariffs and threats to invade Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory and NATO member.

Countries seeking permanent Board of Peace membership will be required to pay a $1 billion fee. A US official told the Associated Press that the fee would go toward reconstructing the obliterated Palestinian strip following more than two years of Israel’s genocidal assault and siege.

There are no Palestinians on the board.



A separate National Committee for the Administration of Gaza—a 12-member technocratic body led by Palestinian official Ali Shaath and tasked with managing day-to-day affairs in the strip—held its inaugural meeting last week in Cairo as Witkoff said that Phase 2 of Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza had begun.

While Trump’s invitation letters to prospective Board of Peace members said the body will “embark on a bold new approach to resolving global conflict,” critics panned the panel as a vanity project for Trump, who fancies himself a grand peacemaker despite having bombed seven countries this year alone.

“I hope he can find time to attend Board of Peace meetings between meetings about invasions of Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, Canada, and Minneapolis‪,” University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket said of Trump in a Bluesky post.

Former US State Department diplomat Aaron David Miller told the Washington Post Monday, “The Board of Peace is a concept tethered to a galaxy far, far away, not tethered to the realities back here on planet Earth.”

“The Board of Peace is not going to be able to solve the conflict in Sudan. It is not going to do what American mediators and Europeans couldn’t do with respect to getting a ceasefire in Ukraine,” he continued.

“We need on-the-ground diplomacy, not the performative creation of committees and bringing large numbers of countries and individuals into a process in which most of them will have no role,” Miller added. “You need Trump. You need Netanyahu. You need Hamas’s internal and external leadership, and you need the Qataris and the Turks.”

On Monday, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich condemned the Board of Peace.

“It is time to explain to the president that his plan is bad for the state of Israel and to cancel it,” Smotrich said during a ceremony to inaugurate the new Yatziv apartheid settlement in the illegally occupied West Bank. “Gaza is ours, its future will affect our future more than anyone else’s. We will take responsibility for what happens there, impose military administration, and complete the mission.”

This, after Netanyahu said earlier in a rare public rebuke of Trump that the board “was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy.”

Nearly a year ago, Trump also said that the US would “own” Gaza, ethnically cleanse it of Palestinians, and transform the coastal strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” He later clarified that he meant the “voluntary” transfer of Palestinians, which critics said amounted to a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.

The White House also reportedly circulated a plan to transform a substantially depopulated Gaza into a high-tech hub replete with a “Gaza Trump Riviera and Islands” development and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone.”

Palestinians have largely been highly skeptical of the Board of Peace.

“When I read the names of the peace council members, I felt this was not a plan that prioritizes the interests of Gaza’s residents,” Sameh Abu Marsa, a forcibly displaced Palestinian living in a refugee camp in Gaza City, told Xinhua Monday. “It looks more like a new form of international mandate, with decisions made externally and without participation from people on the ground.”

“These names suggest political deals rather than genuine peace,” he added.

Khaled Elgindy, a Palestinian scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, said on X Saturday that “tellingly, there is not a single reference to Palestinians, their rights, interests, or even a future [Palestinian] state—none of which are a priority for Blair, Trump, or the so-called Board of Peace.”

Others noted the continuing dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza as Israel restricts the entry of aid, as well as Israel’s more than 1,200 violations of the three-month ceasefire with Hamas. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 465 Palestinians have been killed and 1,287 wounded since the tenuous truce took effect on October 10.

“How can we talk about a peace council while Israel’s violations continue here?” asked Khan Younis resident Abdul Raouf Awad.

What is Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’?

By AFP
January 20, 2026


Palestinians inspected the debris of a damaged building in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, the day after a wave of Israeli air strikes - Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA

US President Donald Trump’s government has asked countries to pay $1 billion for a permanent spot on his “Board of Peace” aimed at resolving conflicts, according to its charter seen by AFP.

The board was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but the charter does not appear to limit its role to the occupied Palestinian territory.

– What will it do? –

The Board of Peace will be chaired by Trump, according to its founding charter.

It is “an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”, reads the preamble of the charter sent to countries invited to participate.

It will “undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law”, it adds.

– Who will run it? –

Trump will be chairman but also “separately serve as inaugural representative” of the US.

“The chairman shall have exclusive authority to create, modify, or dissolve subsidiary entities as necessary or appropriate to fulfil the Board of Peace’s mission,” the document states.

He will pick members of an executive board to be “leaders of global stature” to “serve two-year terms, subject to removal by the chairman”.

He may also, “acting on behalf of the Board of Peace”, “adopt resolutions or other directives”.

The chairman can be replaced only in case of “voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity”.

– Who can be a member? –

Member states must be invited by the US president, and will be represented by their head of state or government.

Each member “shall serve a term of no more than three years”, the charter says.

US President Donald Trump so-called ‘Board of Peace’ would have him in charge of it, able to adopt decisions on its behalf – Copyright AFP/File Thomas COEX

But “the three-year membership term shall not apply to member states that contribute more than USD $1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the Board of Peace within the first year of the charter’s entry into force”, it adds.

The board will “convene voting meetings at least annually”, and “each member state shall have one vote”.

But while all decisions require “a majority of member states present and voting”, they will also be “subject to the approval of the chairman, who may also cast a vote in his capacity as chairman in the event of a tie”.

– Who’s on the executive board? –

The executive board will “operationalise” the organisation’s mission, according to the White House, which said it would be chaired by Trump and include seven members:

– US Secretary of State Marco Rubio

– Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special negotiator

– Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law

– Tony Blair, former UK prime minister

– Marc Rowan, billionaire US financier

– Ajay Banga, World Bank president

– Robert Gabriel, loyal Trump aide on the National Security Council

– Which countries are invited? –

Dozens of countries and leaders have said they have received an invitation.

They include China, India, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Argentina’s President Javier Milei have also confirmed an invite.

Other countries to confirm invites include Jordan, Brazil, Paraguay, Pakistan and a host of nations from Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

– Who will join? –

Countries from Albania to Vietnam have indicated a willingness to join the board.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Trump’s most ardent supporter in the European Union, is also in.

Canada said it would take part, but explicitly ruled out paying the $1-billion fee for permanent membership.

It is unclear whether others who have responded positively — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam among them — would be willing to pay the $1 billion.

– Who won’t be involved? –

Long-time US ally France has indicated it will not join. The response sparked an immediate threat from Trump to slap sky-high tariffs on French wine.

Zelensky said it would be “very hard” to be a member of a council alongside Russia, and diplomats were “working on it”.

– When does it start? –

The charter says it enters into force “upon expression of consent to be bound by three States”.

burs-jxb/rmb

After ceasefire, travel restrictions still haunt Palestinians

 Opinion

After ceasefire, travel restrictions still haunt Palestinians

(RNS) — The time has come to end arbitrary Israeli travel restrictions and the overused excuse of security to allow for the most basic Palestinian human rights.

The Rev. Dr. Imad Haddad, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, right, with his mother, from left, daughters and wife at his installation ceremony, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Jerusalem. (Photo by Michael Younan)

Daoud Kuttab

January 16, 2026

(RNS) — Restricting the movement of people and goods has been a consistent, troubling violation of Palestinians’ human rights under Israeli occupation. While these restrictions have escalated in a big way since Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza, many expected they would loosen up now that a ceasefire has been declared. We are now on the eve of the second phase of the ceasefire, to begin with the reopening of the Rafah crossing point between Gaza and Egypt.

A lack of enough Israeli staff at the King Hussein Bridge between the West Bank and Jordan has resulted in more suffering. I have crossed the bridge in the West Bank monthly for the past 27 years. This year, Palestinians returning from spending their winter holidays with loved ones in Jordan had to set up tents as they waited for their turn to return. The bridge crossing is supposed to be open 24 hours a day, at the initiative of the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, but has not been restored to that schedule. Bridge crossings to Jordan are closed on Saturdays, although the Israeli airports continue to operate 24 hours daily without any restrictions on Friday afternoons and Saturdays, when religious Jews observe Shabbat.

And for the people of Jerusalem, there are few signs of change. Israeli checkpoints continue to have long lines, especially for travelers from Ramallah and Bethlehem to Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said publicly that Israel gives priority to supporting and easing the lives of Christians. That has been debunked by several experts, and the weekend of Jan. 9 to 11 saw further evidence of the false promises made by the Israeli prime minister to U.S. television audiences.

This past weekend, the new bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land was inaugurated in the Old City of Jerusalem, but the event was marred by the absence of many Palestinian Christian parishioners — especially from the Bethlehem area, where the Lutheran church has numerous congregations — amid travel challenges.

The new bishop, Imad Musa Haddad, himself a resident of Bethlehem, was given a six-month temporary permit to travel to Jerusalem. While the permit has no time limit, it states that he is not allowed to stay overnight in the Holy City, where traditionally, Lutheran bishops have enjoyed housing at the church headquarters, meters away from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

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RELATED: Recognizing a Palestinian state isn’t an antisemitic act

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The mother of the bishop almost missed the happy event, as she had been denied a travel permit due to unknown security reasons. She finally received a short-term permit that stated she was allowed to spend the needed hours at the inauguration, despite an alleged security restriction on her. We don’t know what these security reasons were, but some speculated she might have previously received a permit and failed to register her return in time, which is seen in Israel as a major security violation. 

The inauguration took place with many foreign church leaders who were ushered into the church by the two Lutheran-based scout bands in the Bethlehem area. However, the director of the band, Elias Gharib, from Beit Sahour in the West Bank, was not provided a travel permit, also due to unknown security reasons. Twelve members of the Talitha Kumi School scouts also were denied travel permits. 

At the same time, Christian schools in Jerusalem have gone on strike, objecting to the Israeli authorities’ refusal to grant their teachers from the Bethlehem and Ramallah areas permission to travel to their schools. A statement from the Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem said 171 teachers and administrative staff lacked sufficient travel permits, with some given permits for certain days that exclude Saturday — a school day for Christian schools in Jerusalem. And local teachers say that Israel wants to force Christian schools to work on Sundays — a business day for Jewish Israelis — despite a tradition that goes back decades, if not centuries.

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RELATED: US airstrikes in Nigeria offer ‘fragile hope’ for Christians long under attack

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The ability of people and goods to move is a basic right guaranteed in the United Nations’ Universal Human Rights Charter and by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deals with the actions of military powers in the case of a prolonged military occupation. But movement to and from Jerusalem is further compounded by Israel’s unilateral 1967 decision to annex East Jerusalem. Almost all the world powers and UN member states have refused to recognize the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, which they still consider Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

While Palestinians are striving for freedom from occupation and the ability to determine their own future in their own state, the very minimum they need today is to be treated with respect and dignity. Denying Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians, the ability to travel without restriction to the Holy City of Jerusalem and other locations is not only a violation of a basic right, but a show of lack of respect and dignity. The time has come to end arbitrary Israeli travel restrictions and the overused excuse of security to allow for the most basic Palestinian human rights.

(Daoud Kuttab is the publisher of Milhilard.org, a news site focused on Christians in Palestine, Israel and Jordan. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Battle Over Facial Recognition in New Orleans Will Shape Future of Surveillance


Edith Romero, an organizer in New Orleans, discusses the dangers of the growing surveillance state.
By Ed Vogel , TruthoutPublishedJanuary 17, 2026

The New Orleans City Council and New Orleans Police Department continue to push for facial recognition technology, despite persistent community opposition.  John Lund via Getty Images

While New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago have all received significant attention when it comes to police use of surveillance technologies, the small city of New Orleans has for years been the laboratory for a sophisticated surveillance apparatus deployed by the city’s police department and other policing bodies.

Just last year, New Orleans was in the news as the city considered setting a new surveillance precedent in the United States. First, a privately run camera network, Project N.O.L.A., was exposed for deploying facial recognition technology, including “live use” (meaning Project N.O.L.A. was identifying people in real time as they walked through the city). All of this was done in close collaboration with the local police, despite these uses violating a 2022 ordinance that placed narrow limits on the use of facial recognition.

Then the city flirted with formally approving the use of live facial recognition technology, which would have been a first in the United States. If enacted, live facial recognition technology would allow police to identify individuals as they move about New Orleans in real time. All of this occurred in the months before the Trump administration deployed Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, wielding an array of surveillance technologies, to terrorize and kidnap New Orleans residents. Of course, New Orleans residents have organized and actively fought back against the police and their spying, offering lessons for organizers across the country.

Edith Romero, an organizer with Eye on Surveillance (EOS), spoke with Truthout about the history of Eye on Surveillance, Project NOLA, the use of facial recognition technology in New Orleans and why we should all be watching what’s happening there if we’re concerned about the growing surveillance state.

Ed Vogel: Who is Eye on Surveillance and what do you do?

Edith Romero: In 2020, the Eye on Surveillance (EOS) coalition campaigned for and passed a surveillance ordinance ban that prohibited cell site simulators, facial recognition, and other surveillance technologies. Unfortunately, this ordinance was amended a couple of years later to approve loopholes for the use of facial recognition technology. EOS continues working to halt the expansion of surveillance locally, to change narratives regarding surveillance, and to build a New Orleans that is truly safe for everyone. At this moment while we face the occupation of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ICE, and National Guard troops, we are even more committed and engaged in the fight against surveillance, with the clear understanding that surveillance is being deployed to kidnap and terrorize our communities of color.


New Orleans Resists ICE Invasion Despite Surveillance and State Repression
Before ICE descended on New Orleans, GOP lawmakers made it a crime to interfere with immigration enforcement. By Mike Ludwig , Truthout/TheAppeal  December 9, 2025

EOS has done some amazing organizing to make the problem of surveillance legible in New Orleans and across the country. Can you share more about your organizing strategy to challenge surveillance systems and infrastructure?

Our organizing strategy has always been community and coalition building. Surveillance affects us all, especially our communities of color. That is why we work with immigrants, Black and Brown residents of New Orleans, teacher unions, civic organizations, and local organizations to unite under the same mission: building a New Orleans free of surveillance. Surveillance truly impacts all of us, in every aspect of our lives; we bring forward the interconnectedness of shared struggles via our fight against surveillance through community meetings, teach-ins both in person and virtual, online educational campaigns and creative community events such as community scouting of local surveillance cameras. Relationship building is key for nurturing movements and narrative change towards a world that truly takes care of all of us. Relationship building has not only enabled the victory of getting the live facial recognition surveillance ordinance withdrawn but has strengthened community power and narrative change regarding surveillance and the root causes of safety, resources, and community care.

How have you leveraged your base building towards policy change?

Base building is essential for policy change. We know surveillance is an issue that transcends time, lived experience, and identities. To build a wide coalition that truly represented the broad harm, danger, and systemic inequities that surveillance upholds, we brought together organizations whose work doesn’t necessarily focus on surveillance, but was a reflection of how surveillance permeates almost every aspect of our lives. We worked with formerly incarcerated community leaders who teach about the dangers of surveillance for those on parole, especially in emergency situations, we brought in immigrant community members whose lives are constantly monitored and whose families are separated by ICE/CBP with the aid of surveillance weapons, we talked with teachers who provided insight into the school-to-prison pipeline and how surveillance of our youth is seeping into our education system. Base building enables a holistic perspective regarding the harm and racism that surveillance embodies, countering narratives that erroneously attribute safety to overpolicing and surveillance. The goal is to truly have conversations and demand policy that resources communities rather than corporate interests that sacrifice our wellbeing.

From the outside, it feels like the use of facial recognition technology in New Orleans is a perpetual issue. Can you trace for us what has changed regarding facial recognition technology since the policy victory in 2021?

After our victory with the surveillance ban in 2021, which banned four different surveillance technologies including facial recognition, we had to mobilize continuously against the City Council and NOPD as they continued to push for the approval of facial recognition against persistent community opposition. In 2022, City Council added amendments to the surveillance ban that approved facial recognition for “violent offenses,” opening the door to the use of facial recognition by NOPD. Fast forward to 2025, City Council and NOPD again introduced an ordinance to expand facial recognition and other surveillance technologies even further, with the goal of approving live facial recognition in all the city cameras. NOPD and City Council try to sell surveillance as the ultimate solution for crime and safety, even though research and lessons from history show that safety comes from resourcing community, not surveillance or overpolicing. New Orleans heavily invests in surveillance; for example, the French Quarter is the most surveilled area of all the city, and even so, we still have tragedies like the New Year’s Day attack last year. Surveillance will never bring safety, and as of late we have seen how surveillance is being weaponized through drones, facial recognition apps, and license plate readers to kidnap our communities of color through the violent CBP operation in New Orleans, Catahoula Crunch.

How did you learn that NOPD was using facial recognition in real time?

For a while, we had knowledge about Project NOLA secretly spying on us with banned facial recognition cameras. However, we weren’t aware of the extremely close relationship between Project NOLA and NOPD. In early 2025, The Washington Post reported that NOPD was using Project NOLA to bypass the surveillance ban on facial recognition. Through this reporting we learned that despite the ban, Project NOLA would send alerts and work intimately with NOPD officers, sending live facial recognition alerts to their phones, providing feeds of their cameras to certain officers, or communicating about certain people of interest that they wanted to be tracked through live facial recognition.

Can you contextualize the use of facial recognition in New Orleans and describe the specific communities who are targeted by the police?

Facial recognition in New Orleans has to be considered in the context of the deep history of Black enslavement, Jim Crow, and racism in Louisiana, as well as the fact that Louisiana is the incarceration capital of the world. As we know, facial recognition is a deeply biased technology, one that reinforces the systemic racism that exists in our modern-day society. Research finds that facial recognition misidentifies people of color, leading to arrests of people like Randal Reid, a man from Atlanta, who was arrested by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office for crimes in Louisiana that he did not commit. Surveillance historically has been used as an excuse to overpolice and criminalize people of color, starting from the lantern laws that were put in place to surveil enslaved Africans when they moved at night through the carrying of lanterns, to the CIA operations that targeted prominent Black civil rights leaders, to the Patriot Act that demonized Muslim and Arab community members to institute surveillance of U.S. citizens and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

New Orleans is a majority Black city (55 percent, according to the 2024 census) with a sizable Latine and immigrant community, a city that is constantly being labeled as a sacrifice zone for climate crisis induced hurricanes or cancer-causing factories. It is appalling for New Orleans to constantly be used as a testing ground for racist surveillance, considering the amount of harm this technology would bring to an under-resourced city that depends on hospitality revenue from a Black and Latine labor force.

The NOPD says that they are no longer using real time facial recognition technology but there is an effort to enshrine its use into law. Tell us about the proposed ordinance and how EOS is challenging it?

Ordinance 35,137, introduced in May 2025, was a joint attempt by NOPD and City Council to approve live facial recognition in New Orleans, right after their possibly illegal partnership with Project NOLA was exposed by The Washington Post on a national level. EOS quickly mobilized against this dangerous ordinance, bringing together multiple diverse local organizations to oppose it. This included Step Up Louisiana, Voice of the Experienced (VOTE), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and immigrant rights organizations. National organizations such as MediaJustice, Fight for the Future, and Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure (SASSI) also joined the fight against live facial recognition in New Orleans, echoing the understanding that an assault on New Orleans’ through racist surveillance tech is an assault on our collective safety, dignity, and privacy. Surveillance is a danger to everyone, and a coalition of organizations that have diverse perspectives and communities is best situated to denounce the imminent harm posed by live facial recognition. Through public community events, meetings with council members, and campaigns to inform local communities of the danger posed by facial recognition and surveillance, EOS was able to shift public narratives, build diverse coalitions against surveillance and ultimately, get City Council to withdraw the live facial recognition ordinance.

Who is Project NOLA, the organization facilitating this vast camera apparatus?

Project NOLA is a spy network of thousands of private cameras in New Orleans as well as other cities across the country, that uses banned live facial recognition technology through their status as a non-profit. Project NOLA is owned and managed by Bryan Lagarde, an ex-NOPD officer who also hosts Project NOLA footage in reality TV crime shows. He pays himself $220,000 a year for this work and his family populates the executive board of Project NOLA. Project NOLA cameras are installed in business, houses, and private properties throughout Louisiana and even other cities such as Midfield and Fairfield, Alabama. Project NOLA’s purpose is to bypass city law and, through loopholes, facilitate law enforcement with the use of dangerous, racist live facial recognition alongside other highly invasive surveillance technology including license plate readers. Project NOLA has sole discretion and zero community accountability regarding what, how, and where their invasive video footage is stored, disposed, used, or even shared. We know Project NOLA is sharing their video streams with the Louisiana State Police, FBI, and select NOPD officers. If Project NOLA decides to, they could easily share these camera streams with facial recognition with ICE or CBP, facilitating the kidnapping and racial profiling of people of color.

How do the police, elected officials, Project NOLA, and others in New Orleans align and shape the narrative to justify the use of facial recognition and other surveillance tools?

Police, elected officials, Project NOLA, and people who have financial interests that benefit from surveillance justify and sell facial recognition as the ultimate solution for community safety. According to these people in positions of power, more cameras mean less crimes. It also means more incarceration, more profit for private prisons and detention centers, and a lazy, degrading direction to take when trying to ignore the extreme lack of resources in our communities. Real community safety doesn’t take shortcuts, it doesn’t incarcerate, and it surely doesn’t come from surveillance.

Louisiana recently passed Act 399. Can you tell us more about what this legislation does and how it compounds the potential harms of surveillance tools like facial recognition in New Orleans?

Act 399 is a state law designed by right-wing state legislators with the purpose of scaring, intimidating, and silencing any type of action that can seem to be against immigration enforcement in the state of Louisiana. As of December 26, 2025, no one has been prosecuted by this state law, but it has a chilling effect on the people of Louisiana, promoting fear of incarceration for providing mutual aid, recording ICE, or in any way supporting our immigrant communities. ICE, CBP, and our right-wing Gov. Jeff Landry could use Act 399 to force Project NOLA to share their cameras, video streams, and racist surveillance technology with and for violent “immigration enforcement” attacks.

Why do you think people from around the country should be paying attention to this fight in New Orleans?

The fight in New Orleans is one that every city will eventually face. New Orleans is the laboratory for mass surveillance experiments that eventually may spread to the rest of the country. If live facial recognition would have been approved in New Orleans in 2025, it would have provided a blueprint and example for the rest of the country to follow. Surveillance affects us all, whether in one corner of the country or another, or in Palestine where these surveillance technologies were first tested on Palestinians, because it creates a ripple effect of mass surveillance expansion that decimates privacy and constitutional rights, and perpetuates the long history of systemic racism and criminalization of poor people and people of color. At this conjuncture, when the U.S. federal government is increasingly attacking free speech and kidnapping people of color through racial profiling, the threat and danger of surveillance is even more palpable as is the need to fight it and build a better future for our communities.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Ed Vogel is a researcher and organizer.

Imbecile Trump Threatens Americans With $75 Billion Tax Hike So He Can Conquer Greenland

If you missed Trump’s plans to hit us with this tax hike it’s because of the consistently awful reporting we get from major media outlets.

The headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) is seen behind shipping containers of the Frankfurt container port on January 19, 2026 in Frankfurt, Germany. European leaders are scheduled to meet later this week to coordinate their response to the latest tariffs threat from U.S. Donald Trump. Trump recently announced he will impose punitive tariffs on European countries he sees as obstructing his desire to acquire Greenland.
(Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)


Dean Baker
Jan 19, 2026

Beat the Press

Donald Trump is taking his demented dreams to a new level in his quest to take over Greenland. The man who whined over not getting a Nobel Prize and then followed Hitler propagandist Joseph Goebbels lead in accepting a prize awarded to someone else, has now decided he wants Greenland.

Trump is now proposing to whack us with a $75 billion tax increase to put pressure on Denmark and the rest of the EU to give him Greenland. If you missed Trump’s plans to hit us with this tax hike it’s because of the consistently awful reporting we get from major media outlets.


‘Insane’: Trump Threatens 8 Allies With New Tariffs for Opposing Greenland Takeover

They reported on the tariffs Trump is imposing on the European countries most visible in resisting U.S. pressure to take Greenland. The problem with the reporting is that it implies the European countries pay the tariffs. They don’t, we do.

This is not a debatable point; the data are very clear. Well over 90 percent of the cost of a Trump tariff is borne by consumers or importers in the United States, not by the exporting countries. When Trump starts yelling “tariff, tariff, tariff,” he is yelling “tax, tax, tax,” and we’re the ones paying it. And $75 billion is not trivial. It’s one percent of the budget, more than twice the cost of the enhanced premiums for Obamacare policies that Trump says we can’t afford.

Let’s be clear, Trump wants Greenland because it is big. And he almost certainly thinks Greenland is far bigger than it actually is because he doesn’t understand that the Mercator projection maps, which are standard ones we all use, hugely exaggerate the size of areas near the poles.

No one likes the idea that the United States is being run by a moron.

We all know Trump says that he needs Greenland for national security. This argument is not worth a second’s consideration. Greenland and Denmark are both members of NATO. If he felt there was some need for putting additional military assets in or around Denmark, all he has to do is ask.

In fact, there were many more United States military installations in Denmark during the Cold War. We removed them after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Trump’s team themselves made it clear that Greenland is not a national security issue. The country is not even mentioned once in Trump’s National Security Strategy plan that was crafted just two months ago.

Trump effectively admitted this in an interview with the New York Times earlier this month. He acknowledged that he could address any security issues through negotiation with Greenland, Denmark, and the rest of NATO, but said Trump said that he would feel better “psychologically” taking over Greenland.

He compared it to the difference between owning and renting. Insofar as Trump feels a psychological need to own territory that is something that is best addressed through therapy, not military action against allies.

The other argument is that Greenland is rich in rare earth minerals, which Trump’s rich buddies are anxious to exploit. This is popular among people who want to highlight both Trump’s venality and also find rationality in what seems to be an otherwise crazy quest.

While no one should ever underestimate Trump’s corruption, the story doesn’t make any sense. First, it’s not clear that there is big money to be made on Greenland’s rare earth minerals. It is a remote area with little infrastructure. It will be extremely expensive to reach these minerals and would almost certainly take many years. Given developments in technology, it’s not even clear these minerals will still be of much value at the point anyone is able to bring them to the market.

But what’s even more damning for this line of argument is that they could start mining in Greenland tomorrow, if they think it would be profitable. Greenland is very open to foreign investment. If they think there is big money to be made by mining Greenland’s minerals, they would be doing it already.

Trump’s rich friends are undoubtedly pushing for him to take Greenland, he’ll probably give them better deals than Greenland would. Most importantly he will likely get rid of environmental regulations that Greenland’s government would demand.

But the cost of environmental regulations is not likely to be the sort of thing that would warrant a military invasion. Also, it probably is not a good sell to the people of Greenland that Trump wants to take away their ability to protect their environment.

At the end of the day, we really can’t escape the basic story, Trump wants Greenland because it is big. No one likes the idea that the United States is being run by a moron. And it’s painful for those of us left of center to acknowledge that this is who we losing to, not some evil genius. However, that happens to be the reality, and we need to recognize it.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License


Dean Baker  is the co-founder and the senior economist of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of several books, including "Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better bargain for Working People," "The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive," "The United States Since 1980," "Social Security: The Phony Crisis" (with Mark Weisbrot), and "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer." He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
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Scott Bessent just exposed 'insanity' behind Trump's latest ploy: analyst

Robert Davis
January 19, 2026 

RAW STORY


U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gives a statement during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, at the USA House venue, in Davos, Switzerland, January 19, 2026. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse


President Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary just revealed the "insanity" behind Trump's ploy to control Greenland, according to one analyst

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joined NBC News's "Meet the Press" on Sunday to discuss Trump's efforts to wrest control of Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark. Will Saletan, writer for The Bulwark, discussed Bessent's interview in a new video for "Bulwark Takes," which he said was one of the most "embarrassing" of the entire administration.

"He's twisting himself into a pretzel to justify Trump's totally crazy threats against Greenland," Saletan said.

Trump has said that acquiring the country is in America's national interests, although experts have questioned some of the motives the Trump administration has floated to justify the move. The president has repeatedly threatened to invade Greenland, which Danish officials have said would be an "end of NATO" moment, and he recently imposed a 10% tariff on all goods from certain EU countries, including Denmark.

Bessent justified Trump's actions by arguing that the U.S. doesn't want to get dragged into someone else's war to defend the territory, and said the Trump administration is working off of "asymmetric information" to make its decisions about Greenland.

"See, that is information nobody else has," Saletan said. "Not the Danish government, which actually has sovereignty over Greenland and has way better intelligence than we do, and not the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who would know if we really did have secret information about Russia and China operating in Greenland. No, Trump and Bessant have information that is so secret they haven't shared it with anybody else. Almost as though they're making it up."

Stop ‘appeasing’ bully Trump, Amnesty chief tells Europe

By AFP
January 19, 2026


Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos - Copyright AFP Fabrice COFFRINI
Elodie LE MAOU

The leader of global rights group Amnesty International urged European countries Monday to stop “appeasing” US President Donald Trump and resist him and other “bullies” who she said were intent on destroying the rules-based order in place since World War II.

“We need much more resistance,” Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Europe’s credibility is at stake.”

Her comments came as Trump doubled down on his threats to take over Greenland “one way or the other”, insisting such a move is necessary for world security, prompting European countries to close ranks against his designs on the vast Danish territory.

German and French leaders denounced as “blackmail” Trump’s weekend threats to wield new tariffs against countries which oppose his plans for the Arctic island, suggesting Europe was preparing trade countermeasures.

But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was due to meet Trump in Davos on Wednesday, also stressed that Europe was eager to “avoid any escalation” in the dispute.



– ‘Say no’ –



Callamard urged governments to show more “courage” and to “say no”.

“Stop thinking you can make deals with bullies, stop thinking you can agree to the rules of the predators and not become yourself a victim of them.”

The Amnesty chief highlighted that the US bid to seize Greenland was only the latest indication that the world is facing the “destruction of the rules-based order”.

She lamented that global and regional “superpowers” seemed “intent on destroying what has been established after World War II, dedicated to finding common rules to our common problems”.

Since Trump’s return to the White House a year ago, he has taken “a range of decisions that have led to the demise of many rules around the world”, while Russia was destroying the system “through its aggression in Ukraine”, she said.

European powers have been treading a thin line over Ukraine in recent months, relying on Washington to try to help settle the conflict but resisting terms too favourable to Moscow.

The post-WWII order “is also being destroyed by Israel that has completely ignored international law in its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” she added.

Amnesty and other rights groups have repeatedly accused Israel of carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a term vehemently rejected by the Israeli government.

Callamard stressed that the rules-based order was established in response to “a global war that had killed millions of people, as a response to extermination camps that had killed six million Jews, as a response to authoritarianism that had led to the most daunting global repression the world over”.



– ‘Abyss’ –



“The fact that it is now being destroyed without any plan B, just for the sake of destroying the rules, should send shivers to all of us,” she said, warning that the only alternative to the rules-based system was “falling down into an abyss”.

“That’s what we need to prevent.”

The Davos gathering this year is taking place under the tagline “A Spirit of Dialogue”, but Callamard warned “there is no evidence of dialogue” currently among the world’s decision-makers.

“There is evidence of bullying. There is evidence of destruction. There is evidence of countries using their military power, their economic power, to force others into agreeing to their one-sided deals.”

Such tactics had for the past 12 months been met with European “appeasement”.

“We have sought to appease the bully, the predator living in Washington,” she said.

“Where has this led us? To more and more attacks, to more and more threats.”

Callamard, who is French, recalled that the European project was not just about economics, but also about values, humanity and the rule of law.

“I’m hoping that our leaders will recall that… history and see in the current challenges a way of re-insisting on the European project and demanding human rights protection for the sake of humanity,” she said.

“That demands stopping the appeasement politics, (which) simply is not working”.

“Please stop it. Resist. Resist.”

Leading economist teaches Europe how to cripple Trump

Jake Johnson,

 Common Dreams
January 19, 2026 


Jesper Toennesen, the creator of the Anti-MAGA cap "Nu det NUUK!" which is sold in his clothing store McKorman on Noerrebrogade, looks on, in Copenhagen, Denmark, January 13, 2026. The message "Nu er det NUUK!" and "Make America go away" is embroidered on the cap. After the heated debate between the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark about Trump's renewed desire to take over Greenland, "Nu er det NUUK" has gone viral on the internet. The phrase "Nu er det NUUK!" refers to Greenland's capital Nuuk - and can be translated from Danish as "Enough is enough"

Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/via REUTERS

The leading French economist Gabriel Zucman is urging European governments to inflict financial pain on American billionaires in response to US President Donald Trump’s effort to seize control of Greenland, a mineral-rich island that some of Trump’s rich campaign donors see as a potentially massive profit opportunity.

“Europe should respond to Trump’s blackmail with targeted measures aimed not at American consumers, but at American billionaires,” Zucman wrote in a post on his Substack. “Access to the European market—by billionaires and the companies they own—should be made conditional on paying a wealth tax: in effect, a tariff for oligarchs. If Elon Musk, for example, wants to keep selling Teslas in Europe, he should have to pay it. If he refuses, Tesla would lose access to the European market.”Zucman outlined his proposal after Trump threatened over the weekend to hit France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland with tariffs up to 25% if they don’t drop their opposition to the US president’s demand for “the complete and total purchase of Greenland,” an autonomous territory of Denmark.

The targeted countries are currently weighing retaliatory tariffs and other potential responses to Trump’s threat.

Zucman, a renowned expert on global inequality, argued that while existing mechanisms such as the anti-coercion instrument known as Europe’s trade “bazooka” can be useful, “anti-oligarchic protectionism has a decisive advantage: It opens a two-front struggle against Trump, at home and abroad.”

“By targeting oligarchic wealth rather than national pride,” Zucman wrote, “Europe can blunt Trump’s ability to mobilize nationalist resentment and rally part of the American public behind his imperial agenda.”

Trump’s proposed Greenland takeover is widely opposed by the island’s population and US voters. But as journalist Casey Michel wrote for The New Republic last week, there is one key constituency that stands to benefit massively from a US takeover of the mineral-rich territory: American oligarchs, including some of Trump’s top campaign donors.

“Ranging from tech moguls to fossil fuel company heads, all of these figures and forces have invested in mining and extraction companies across the island—and all stand to profit if only they can cut out any pesky Danish or Greenlandic authorities from regulating or restraining their operations,” wrote Michel. “The figures behind the curtain are by no means obscure. KoBold Metals, a mining outfit helping lead Greenland’s ‘modern gold rush,’ has seen investments from figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and hedge funds like Andreessen Horowitz.”

“Another company eyeing Greenland,” Michel added, “is Critical Metals Corp, which is backed by the same hedge fund that Howard Lutnick, now Trump’s commerce secretary, spent years running.”

“The vast fortunes of the sleaze buckets who put Trump into the White House and back his attack on democracy in the United States and around the world will suddenly be thrown into question.”

Tariffs targeting such firms and the billionaires behind them, Zucman argued, would be the most effective way to penalize Trump’s reckless behavior and deter him in the future.

“If imperialism is driven by oligarchic power, then oligarchic power must be confronted,” Zucman wrote. “What are the alternatives? Doing nothing invites endless blackmail.”

US economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, made the case for a similarly aggressive European response to Trump’s economic warfare.

“European countries can announce that they will no longer honor US-owned patents and copyrights,” Baker wrote Monday. “Putting US patents and copyrights on the line is a guaranteed attention grabber. The vast fortunes of the sleaze buckets who put Trump into the White House and back his attack on democracy in the United States and around the world will suddenly be thrown into question.”

“The key point is that European countries, by opting to not respect US patents and copyrights, have an incredibly powerful weapon to use against Donald Trump and his rich supporters,” Baker added. “The time has come for them to go nuclear.”

'Who does it benefit?' Expert reveals who Trump is really helping with Greenland fantasy

Matthew Chapman
January 19, 2026 
RAW STORY


FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

President Donald Trump's designs on Greenland seem almost perfectly calculated to be a boon to Russia and Vladimir Putin, New York University professor and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat told MS NOW's Ari Melber on Monday evening.

"Ruth, what do you see as the validity of this move?" asked Melber. "On a scale of 0 to 10, we're seeing a lot of folks say zero. It has — it's not a risk/reward, it has no particular validity. What do you rate it? And then what do you think is really going on with Trump and this plan?"

"Well, it has zero validity from a point of view of anybody other than an autocrat, a megalomaniac autocrat," said Ben-Ghiat, a frequent critic of Trump. "But what's going on is, you know, Trump talked about trying to buy Greenland in 2019. And the then-Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo went along with it, saying that, you know, global warming will liberate all these precious minerals and oil and discovered oil. So there's that."

"The other thing is that I believe that Trump is in office, in part, to solve Vladimir Putin's problems and creating a crisis for NATO and dividing NATO and having the U.S. go rogue in ways that are quite authoritarian," she continued. "Who does it benefit? It benefits Putin. And the other thing is that, unfortunately, autocrats can get into a state, I call this 'autocratic backfire,' when they believe their own hype, and they become convinced that nothing can restrain them. And Donald Trump recently gave an interview to The New York Times saying that he was restrained only by his own mind, which is not reassuring, and his own morality."

Melber agreed with this assessment, adding that Trump appears to be "believing the hype."


Ultimately, Ben Ghiat added, Trump "had almost like a narcissistic ego injury when he did not get the Peace Prize. And he talked about it in many, many posts. And Machado of Venezuela gave him hers, but that didn't satisfy him. And so he actually wrote to the Norwegian Prime Minister saying that because he didn't get, as you said in the introduction, because he didn't get the Peace Prize, he feels no obligation to care about peace. And so when autocrats are denied something, they go into a kind of rage and they take it out both on their own people and in this case, on the continent of Europe, by threatening economic warfare with the tariffs."

Trump's Greenland push highlights 'real danger' of president's second term: expert

Ewan Gleadow
January 20, 2026 
RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump points a finger during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt

Donald Trump's continued interest in Greenland highlights a bigger hazard than first thought according to a political commentator.

Christopher Bucktin, writing in The Daily Mirror, suggested the president's interest in taking Greenland into US control highlights a larger problem for world nations to stand against. Bucktin wrote, "The real danger is how familiar this all feels. Each outrageous threat lands, causes a stir, then fades."

"The bar drops. What once would have sparked fury is now dismissed as “just Trump being Trump”. That shrug is how norms and society collapse."

"This is no longer theatre. It’s a warning. Trump’s obsession with power, territory and punishment has turned him into a genuine threat to world order. The only unanswered question is how much damage he will be allowed to do before the world finally tells him his shakedown is over."

Trump has made it clear he wants Greenland for national security purposes, and has since lashed out at NATO members opposing his desire for the country to be subsumed into the US.

Tariff actions were applied to eight nations, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. The president has also posted to Truth Social earlier today (January 20) denouncing the UK for giving up an island with a US military base.

He wrote, "Shockingly, our 'brilliant' NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER."

"There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness. These are International Powers who only recognize STRENGTH, which is why the United States of America, under my leadership, is now, after only one year, respected like never before."

"The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired. Denmark and its European Allies have to DO THE RIGHT THING. Thank you for your attention to this matter. PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP."

Trump says world ‘not secure’ until US has Greenland

By AFP
January 19, 2026


Danish soldiers disembark in Nuuk, Greenland, on January 18, 2026, as US President Donald Trump steps up his threats to take the Arctic territory from NATO ally Denmark - Copyright Ritzau Scanpix/AFP Mads Claus Rasmussen

Pierre-Henry DESHAYES, with Johannes LEDEL in Stockholm

Donald Trump no longer needs to think “purely of peace” after being snubbed for a Nobel, the US president said in comments published Monday, adding the world will not be safe until Washington controls Greenland.

Trump has put the transatlantic alliance to the test with threats to take over Greenland “one way or the other”, with European countries closing ranks against Washington’s designs on the vast Danish territory.

German and French leaders denounced as “blackmail” weekend threats by Trump to wield new tariffs against countries which oppose his plans for the Arctic island, and said Monday that Europe was preparing trade countermeasures.

The European Union said it was holding an emergency summit on Thursday to weigh its response, and that while its priority is to “engage not escalate” it is ready to act if needed.

Greenland, for its part, said the tariffs threat does not change its desire to assert its own sovereignty.

“We will not be pressured,” Greenlandic prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post, adding that the autonomous territory “is a democratic society with the right to make its own decisions”.

But Trump had earlier doubled down, announcing in a message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store that the world “is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland”.

The message — published Monday and whose authenticity was confirmed to AFP by Store’s office — also saw Trump brush aside peace as a primary goal.

“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” he said, citing his failure to win the last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, despite openly coveting it.

He said although peace would still be “predominant,” he could “now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

Store said the statement had been received in response to a message from him and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, where they had “conveyed our opposition” to Trump’s tariff threats.

Store also underlined that the Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded by the Norwegian government.

“I have clearly explained, including to President Trump what is well known — the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee,” he said in a written statement.



– Russia, China threat? –



Trump has repeatedly said his country needs vast, mineral-rich Greenland for “national security”, despite the United States already having a base on the island and security agreements with fellow NATO ally Denmark.

“Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China,” Trump said in his message to the Norwegian premier, doubling down on that sentiment in a post to Truth Social on Monday.

Denmark’s defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen said Monday steps had already been taken along with NATO allies to “increase military presence and training activity in the Arctic and the North Atlantic”.

Lund Poulsen added that he and Greenlandic foreign minister Vivian Motzfeldt would be meeting with NATO chief Mark Rutte later on Monday.



– ‘Blackmail’ –



This weekend, Trump said that from February 1, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would be subject to a 10-percent tariff on all goods sent to the United States — a duty which could go higher.

Germany’s vice chancellor Lars Klingbeil slammed the move as blackmail, and said Monday that Europe was preparing countermeasures.

French finance minister Roland Lescure, speaking at a press conference alongside Kingbeil, agreed.

“Blackmail between allies of 250 years, blackmail between friends, is obviously unacceptable,” Lecurse said.

Klingbeil said Europe’s response could have three main strands.

First, the current tariff deal with the United States would be put on hold, he said.

Second, European tariffs on imports from the United States, currently suspended until early February, could come into force.

And thirdly the EU should consider using its toolbox of instruments against “economic blackmail”, he added.

Europe’s stock markets fell as the week’s trading began Monday, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warning that a “trade war is in no one’s interest”.

Greenland — whose tiny population of 57,000 has voiced disquiet at Trump’s threats — continued to make its preferences clear Monday.

Greenland’s dogsled federation said that the new US special envoy to the Arctic island had been disinvited to its annual race.

Jeff Landry had been invited to attend the race by a private Greenlandic tour operator, an invite the KNQK federation has previously called “totally inappropriate”.

burs-jll/st