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**Hugh** · Yesterday, 21:03

They’re acclimated to the Minnesota conditions after being in Alaska - the Socials are full of videos of the current ICE personnel slipping on the snow and ice (it’s currently -12C in Minneapolis, going down to -23C overnight).

However, they are coming from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, which specializes in cold-weather operations - however, the current temperature there is 2C, dropping to -3C overnight, so it’s a bit cooler in Minnesota…

---------- Post added at 19:26 ---------- Previous post was at 18:57 ----------

https://fortune.com/2026/01/18/europ...eenland-trump/

Quote:

As the European Union weighs options to retaliate against President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs, its most potent weapon may be in financial markets.

France is already urging the EU to deploy its “anti-coercion instrument,” which can target foreign direct investment and finance as well as trade. That’s after Trump announced new U.S. tariffs on NATO countries that sent troops to Greenland amid his plans to take over the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

At face value, a 10% tariff rising to 25% would have minimal economic consequences, Capital Economics chief economist Neil Shearing said in a note Sunday, estimating they would reduce GDP in the targeted NATO economies by 0.1-0.3 percentage points and add 0.1-0.2 points to U.S. inflation.

“The political ramifications would be far greater than the economic ones,” he warned, with any attempt by the U.S. to seize Greenland by force or coercion potentially leading to irreparable harm to NATO.

So far, European officials have signaled Greenland’s sovereignty is a red line that’s not up for compromise, while the Trump administration isn’t budging either on its stance.
But the U.S. has a key vulnerability the EU can exploit, according to George Saravelos, head of FX research at Deutsche Bank.

“Europe owns Greenland, it also owns a lot of Treasuries,” he wrote in a note on Sunday.
Holding those bonds helps balance America’s massive external deficits, and Europe is the world’s biggest lender to the U.S.

For example, offsetting the U.S. trade imbalance requires heavy inflows of capital from abroad. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department must also finance budget gaps by issuing more debt, often to foreign investors.

“European countries own $8 trillion of US bonds and equities, almost twice as much as the rest of the world combined,” Saravelos pointed out. “In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the western alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play this part.”

---------- Post added at 20:03 ---------- Previous post was at 19:26 ----------

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2902692.html

Quote:

Countries on Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza will be asked to contribute $1bn to keep their membership for more than three years, according to reports.

“Each Member State shall serve a term of no more than three years from this Charter’s entry into force, subject to renewal by the Chairman,” a draft document first reported by Bloomberg shows.

It adds that the three-year 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”.

According to the draft, Mr Trump would serve as the board’s chair and decide on who is invited to be a member. While decisions would be taken by a majority, with each member state present getting one vote, all decisions would be subject to the chair’s approval.

The draft also reportedly suggests that Mr Trump would control the money himself, and that it would allegedly go towards rebuilding Gaza.