Max Americana: US seizes Russian-flagged oil tanker in Europe while turning heat on icy Greenland

TOI correspondent from Washington: Any doubts that Trumpian America has embarked on a muscular, combative path aimed at unilateral, unipolar global domination has been laid to rest after the US Navy on Wednesday seized a Russian-flagged tanker carrying oil from Venezuela in European waters for violating US sanction, getting to it ahead of Russian defence. At the same time, the Trump administration officially laid out the case for taking over Greenland, either with force or through a purchase, in the face of European protests.

The twin developments were accompanied by bellicose statements from Trump administration officials that the US would dominate the world with strength, force, and power regardless of rules-based international norms in keeping with the America First doctrine. Vice-president JD Vance among other officials dismissed global alarm about US action in Venezuela, including criticism from the United Nations, saying “but are we just supposed to allow a communist to steal our stuff in our hemisphere and do nothing? Great powers don't act like that."




“The United States, thanks to President Trump's leadership, is a great power again. Everyone should take note,” Vance warned in a post on X.

The clearest articulation of Washington’s muscular new outlook came from Trump’s White House aide Stephen Miller with this statement on CNN, even as the US Navy was interdicting the Venezuelan oil tanker: “You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power…These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

While Miller, who seems to have transitioned from Homeland Security advisor to a foreign policy spokesman, asserted that it has always been the “formal position” of the Trump administration that “Greenland should be part of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to calm disquiet among US lawmakers about a forceful takeover of the Danish affiliate, saying President Trump plans to buy Greenland rather than invade it. The White House was more ambiguous.

“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the commander in chief’s disposal,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, outlining the administration’s thinking.

Even US lawmakers are gobsmacked by the administration’s dramatic moves on Greenland. On Tuesday, two Senators, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis, issued a joint statement saying “When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark.”

But MAGA principals are in no mood to listen to sage advice. Trump himself is reported to have asked aides to give him an updated plan for acquiring the territory, while his surrogates are making the case that the US can simply take over the icy island state by means of a 1951 era agreement with Denmark that allows Washington to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”

But that agreement was updated with a 2004 amendment that mandated the US to consult with Denmark and Greenland before it makes “any significant changes” in its military operations on the island. Denmark has also ceded considerable autonomy to Greenland since then, although it still controls its foreign policy and defense.

Both Danes and Greenlanders have said the territory is not for sale while signaling wildly that the U.S can deploy its military -- by simply asking politely instead of occupying by force.

But use of force is the sentiment coursing through MAGA circles. 'The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in FULL EFFECT — anywhere in the world,” secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said after the interdiction of the Russian-flagged tanker – getting to it just ahead of a Russian submarine Moscow despatched to protect it, according to some reports.