There is a particular kind of exhaustion that settles over one when observing the annual pantomime at Davos. It is a place where the world’s self-appointed custodians gather to congratulate themselves on their own relevance while the planet slowly dissolves beneath their bespoke footwear. But this year, the thinning Alpine air seems to have induced a collective hallucination, or perhaps merely a moment of terrifying honesty. We find ourselves witnessing a performance of such breathtakingly 19th-century hubris that even the most seasoned cynic must pause to admire the sheer, unadulterated gall of it all. The American President, a man who views the map of the world as a catalog of distressed assets, has decided that Greenland is the missing piece in his global portfolio.

To hear him describe it, Greenland is not a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark, inhabited by actual human beings with their own history and agency. No, in the vulgarian’s lexicon, it is merely an 'unsecured island.' The phrase is delicious in its absurdity. It suggests a piece of luggage left unattended at a bus station, or a suburban home with a broken window, practically begging for a more 'responsible' owner to come along and change the locks. It is the language of the repossession man, applied to two million square kilometers of ice and sovereignty. One can almost see the gears grinding beneath the golden coiffure: why bother with the subtleties of soft power when one can simply demand to buy the neighbors' backyard?

At the World Economic Forum, surrounded by the crème de la crème of bureaucratic incompetence and corporate greed, the President’s demand for annexation was delivered with the subtle grace of a sledgehammer hitting a soufflé. He assured his captive audience that the United States would not use military force—at least 'for now'—to seize the territory. How wonderfully magnanimous. It is the rhetorical equivalent of a mob boss telling a shopkeeper he doesn't want to burn the place down today, provided the 'economic and diplomatic' tributes are paid in full. This is the new face of international relations: a burlesque of the Monroe Doctrine performed in a ski resort for the benefit of terrified billionaires.

Of course, the performance wouldn't be complete without the obligatory lashing out at European leaders. To the American eye, the leaders of the Old World are not allies; they are merely obstacles to a better deal, a collection of tiresome headmasters who insist on talking about 'treaties' and 'legal frameworks' when there is real estate to be liquidated. The irony, naturally, is that the Europeans are so paralyzed by their own commitment to decorum that they can do little more than offer polite coughs of disapproval. They stand there, clutching their copies of the Paris Agreement, while the ghost of Manifest Destiny stalks the halls of the Congress Centre, looking for a pen to sign the deed.

One must appreciate the surgical precision with which this rhetoric deconstructs the post-war order. For decades, we have pretended that the age of territorial acquisition was behind us, replaced by the cleaner, more efficient methods of market dominance and debt-trap diplomacy. But here is the truth, stripped of its finery: the world is still just a collection of assets to be grabbed by whoever has the loudest voice and the least shame. The 'unsecured' nature of Greenland isn't about security in a military sense; it’s about the existential anxiety of a superpower that realizes it can no longer command respect and has therefore decided to demand ownership instead.

As I watch the footage of the business leaders nodding along, or perhaps just twitching in rhythmic discomfort, I am reminded that we are living through a tragicomic sequel to the Scramble for Africa, only with more cashmere and less geographical knowledge. The absurdity is the point. By demanding the impossible—the annexation of a sovereign territory through a real estate transaction—the President successfully reduces the entire concept of national borders to a negotiation over price. It is the ultimate triumph of the transactional mind over the intellectual tradition. The message to Europe is clear: your history is a liability, your sovereignty is a suggestion, and your islands are currently 'unsecured.' I told you this was coming. We are no longer governed by statesmen; we are being managed by a landlord who is frustrated that he can’t find the keys to the world’s largest icebox. It would be funny if it weren't so profoundly pathetic.