In the latest episode of ‘As the Planet Melts,’ we find ourselves subjected to the tedious spectacle of a top European Union official ‘blasting’—to use the breathless vernacular of the media—Donald Trump over his recurring fever dream of purchasing Greenland. It is a collision of two equally nauseating worlds: the American brand of crude, transactional hyper-capitalism and the European penchant for performative moralizing through the medium of red tape. The EU official, clutching their pearls with the rhythmic precision of a ticking clock, reminded the world that ‘a deal is a deal’ and that international law is ‘not a game.’ One has to admire the sheer, unadulterated delusion required to believe that international law has ever been anything other than a game played by the powerful to keep the slightly less powerful from touching their silver.

Let’s start with the American side of this geopolitical circus. Trump, a man whose entire worldview is filtered through the lens of a 1980s real estate seminar, views the world not as a collection of cultures or histories, but as a series of distressed assets. To him, Greenland isn’t a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark with a unique indigenous population; it’s a giant, icy golf course waiting to be paved over with gold-plated trimmings. His shock that he cannot simply whip out a checkbook and buy a strategic landmass is perhaps the most honest thing about him. It is the ultimate manifestation of the American psyche: everything is for sale if the buyer is loud enough and the seller is sufficiently intimidated. He treats diplomacy with the same grace a demolition crane treats a Victorian townhouse. There is no nuance, no respect for sovereignty, only the primal urge to put a logo on something that doesn't belong to him.

Then we have the European Union’s reaction, which is, if possible, even more exhausting. The ‘top official’—anonymized as they often are, shielding their lack of charisma behind the collective weight of Brussels—is ‘blasting’ Trump for going back on his word. The irony is thicker than the permafrost. The EU, a bureaucratic leviathan that spends half its time drafting regulations on the curvature of bananas and the other half failing to agree on a unified defense strategy, suddenly wants to play the role of the global schoolmarm. ‘International law is not a game,’ they cry, as if the last century of European history wasn't a masterclass in breaking, rewriting, and ignoring laws whenever the borders needed shifting or the markets needed stabilizing.

The phrase ‘a deal is a deal’ is particularly hilarious coming from the hallowed halls of European governance. This is the same continent that has spent decades navigating the murky waters of trade agreements and climate accords that are largely ignored the moment they become inconvenient. To lecture a man like Trump on the sanctity of a deal is like lecturing a shark on the virtues of veganism. It is a futile exercise in moral posturing, designed to make the speaker feel intellectually superior while achieving absolutely nothing. The EU is terrified not because Trump is breaking the rules, but because he is exposing the fact that the rules only exist as long as everyone agrees to pretend they do. He has pulled back the curtain on the ‘rules-based international order,’ revealing it to be a cardboard set held together by spit and prayer.

Meanwhile, the actual residents of Greenland are treated as little more than background noise in this spat between two aging ideologies. To Trump, they are overhead; to the EU, they are a convenient rhetorical shield to be used against American ‘aggression.’ Neither side actually cares about the sovereignty of the Greenlandic people or the ecological catastrophe unfolding in the Arctic. If they did, they wouldn’t be arguing over the legality of a sale; they’d be panicking over the fact that the object of their desire is literally liquifying. But no, let us focus on the ‘sanctity of the deal.’ Let us debate the finer points of international law while the sea levels rise to swallow the very diplomats having the conversation.

It is all so relentlessly predictable. The American right will cheer for the ‘boldness’ of trying to buy an island, mistaking greed for strength. The European left will swoon over the ‘dignity’ of the EU’s response, mistaking impotence for integrity. In reality, it is just two different ways of being useless. We are trapped in a loop where the only two options are a man who thinks he can buy the world and a group of people who think they can save it by filing the correct paperwork in triplicate. It is a race to the bottom, and the only consolation is that once the ice caps are gone, there won't be anything left for either side to fight over. Until then, we are forced to watch this pathetic shadow-play, where ‘blasting’ is the only form of action and ‘the law’ is the only punchline.