Greenland and Iran next for ‘imperial highness’ Trump: Jeffrey Sachs

In the first year of his second term, ‘peace president’ Donald Trump bragged about brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, but also authorised a series of air strikes, justifying them as expanding peace through strength.

He had begun his second term as US president by declaring that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier”. However, since taking office in January 2025, Trump is reported to have overseen at least 626 air strikes, according to data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, reported Military Times. His predecessor, former President Joe Biden, was reported to have authorised a total of 555 strikes in his four-year term.

In 2025, the United States carried out targeted attacks in Somalia from February onwards, aimed at degrading the ability of the Islamic State (IS) to conduct attacks. A targeted attack in Iraq in March killed second-highest ranking ISIS leader Abdallah Makki Muslih al Rifa.

From March to May, the US bombed Houthi command posts in Yemen until a ceasefire was announced. In the most audacious attack in violation of international law, the US deployed B-2 stealth bombers in June to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities buried deep underground.

Beginning September 2025, the US military carried out a sustained campaign of maritime strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, designed to dismantle alleged powerful drug cartels and stop the flow of Venezuelan narcotics into the United States. Over 100 people were officially killed in attacks on vessels allegedly carrying drugs.

Again, US fighter jets and attack helicopters struck over 70 ‘suspected’ IS targets in Syria in October-November while on Christmas Day, the US carried out air strikes in Nigeria to ‘protect Christians’. 

The military operation against Venezuela was being carried out since September, but a drone attack on the nation's capital Caracas in late December appears to have been a dress rehearsal for the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro. The Venezuelan president has been charged on various counts of drug trafficking and trade by the US department of Justice, is the official justification for the kidnapping.

How lawful is the kidnapping, though? For example, would it be possible for a court in a foreign country to indict the US president and make a bid to kidnap him to face trial? This will not be acceptable by any country or validated by any international law; but as far as the US and President Trump are concerned, international law and sovereignty of nations have ceased to carry any weight, says Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, political scientist and commentator on international affairs.

Within hours of Trump declaring that the US would ‘run’ Venezuela until a pro-US regime is installed in Caracas, Sachs warned Europe to be ready for US to occupy Greenland. Not only has Trump been on record claiming that Greenland — administered by and a part of Denmark — belongs to the US but by all available indications, the occupation of Greenland is imminent, Sachs said, referring to the White House appointing a special envoy for Greenland as one of the latest signals.

In an interview with a Norwegian broadcaster, Sachs did not mince his words, calling the US president "unhinged, undisciplined and a lawless bully". In the first year of Trump's second term as president, Sachs recalled, the US has already bombed Iran, Nigeria, Syria and now Venezuela. This repeated bombing of sovereign nations, he suggested, is being done with impunity, but neither American media nor the United Nations is condemning it.

The UN is "useless" and the US Congress no longer exists in a functional sense, Sachs lamented. He is not surprised because since World War II, the US has engaged in around 100 regime-change operations around the world. What the rest of the world does not understand, Sachs said, is that US foreign policy is a long-term project. The Ukrainian project, he points out, is 30 years old, and the project to take over the oil reserved and vast mineral reserves in Venezuela has been 20 years in the making.

At a dinner eight years ago with leaders of Latin American countries, the then US president had casually asked what could go wrong if the US invaded Venezuela and took it over, Sachs claimed. Two presidents present at the dinner, he recalled, had shared with him details of the conversation. So, the operation in Venezuela has been brewing for several years and the next targets of US expansionism appear to be Greenland and Iran, he added.