Image of the week: Still not for sale
Its ice cap may be losing an average of 30 million tonnes of ice an hour, but Greenland is still a joint that Donald Trump would very much like to snap up, presumably so he can help it shrink that bit faster. It just happens, of course, to be of strategic importance to the US military, and this week – to much alarm, despite the usual down-playing pundits – Trump declined to rule out taking it (and the Panama Canal) by force.
Never mind that Greenland is a semi-autonomous part of Denmark or that Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly told Trump that it’s “not for sale”. She was first obliged to do so back in 2019, when Trump posited that “essentially it’s a large real-estate deal”. He called her “nasty” at the time for dismissing his grand vision as “absurd”. Women, eh?
Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, too, has also insisted that his home isn’t on the market, though he would like the territory, which has a population of 60,000, to be independent from Denmark for good measure.
Not to be deterred by such negative thinking, an unofficial emissary of the US president-elect – his son, Donald Trump jnr – this week landed in the capital Nuuk, in a Trump-emblazoned plane. He promptly took selfies with locals, slagged off Denmark and said Greenland was “really a great place”. Worst of all, and there’s just no way of sugar-coating this, he shot some content for a podcast.
In numbers: Costly times
$900,000
Value, according to financial news wire Bloomberg, of the rare Swiss watch worn by Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a video in which he explained why he was ending independent fact-checking on the company’s social media platforms in the US.
$1 million
The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is one of a number of US tech giants that is chipping in this sum to fund the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump on January 20th.
$1.4 billion
Sum Meta agreed to pay Texas last July to resolve the state’s lawsuit accusing it of illegally using facial recognition technology to collect the biometric data of millions of Texans without their consent. Zuckerberg announced this week that its teams overseeing content policy will move from California to Texas.
Getting to know: Michael Barr
Not quite going before he was pushed, but going before there was an almighty skirmish about whether or not he could be pushed, the Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator quit his supervisory role this week. But Michael Barr, whose term as vice-chair for supervision was not due to expire until next year, will remain on the seven-strong board of governors on the Fed, meaning Trump must pick his replacement from that board and there’s no nice little governor vacancy to fill. The US president-elect had vowed to fire Barr for the crime of supporting stricter banking regulation.
Barr himself said “the risk of a dispute” over the position could be “a distraction from our mission” and he would be “more effective in serving the American people” from his role as a governor. Or, as Mohamed El-Erian, veteran businessman and chief economic adviser to Allianz, told CNBC, he stepped down “to protect the Fed” and help it “navigate this political landscape”. Barr, he said, was “taking one for the Fed”.
The list: Next Canadian PM
He was the future once, but this week Justin Trudeau capitulated to a deepening crisis and announced that he will resign as Canadian prime minister once his Liberal party elects a new leader. So who’s in the running to lead it into its next election?
1. Chrystia Freeland: The resignation of the erstwhile deputy PM from Trudeau’s cabinet in December compounded the sense of crisis for the prime minister. Could Freeland – that’s “free” and “land”, Donald – join the ranks of former journalists to lead their countries?
2. Anita Anand: Canada’s procurement minister during the pandemic, Anand was later promoted to defence minister, before being reshuffled into a less prominent role – the speculation being that Trudeau was unsettled by her leadership ambitions.
3. Francois-Philippe Champagne: The former businessman and international trade specialist is limbering up for Canada’s massive tariff fight with Trump, but whether he will do it as prime minister is as yet unclear.
4. Mélanie Joly: “We will never back down in the face of threats,” said Canada’s foreign minister, another possible leadership contender, after Trump mused that Canada should become the 51st state. (“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell,” was how Trudeau put it.)
5. Mark Carney: The former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor, an economic adviser to the party, was once known as the George Clooney of banking. Coincidentally, Clooney is also known as the Mark Carney of film in some circles.
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