There is a particular, wearying rhythm to the modern collapse of Western diplomacy, a sort of syncopated beat played on a drum made of scrap metal and discarded treaties. We find ourselves, once again, observing the American President—a man whose geopolitical strategy appears to have been lifted from a 1980s real estate seminar held in a damp basement—attempting to purchase Greenland. One might have thought the era of buying sovereign territories like late-night infomercial collectibles had ended with the Louisiana Purchase, but history has a cruel way of repeating itself, first as tragedy, then as a reality television subplot. It is profoundly American to assume that everything, from the human soul to an autonomous constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark, comes with a barcode and a negotiable interest rate.

The ultimatum is simple: hand over the world’s largest island, with all its strategic ice and mineral potential, or face a trade war. It is the diplomatic equivalent of a toddler threatening to set the nursery on fire because he wasn’t allowed to eat the decorative plastic fruit. For years, the European elite have played the role of the indulgent, if slightly terrified, nanny. They have tut-tutted through the NATO tantrums, sighed through the withdrawal from climate accords, and looked the other way while the very foundations of the post-war order were used as kindling for a populist bonfire. But apparently, Greenland is where the needle skips on the record. The 'breaking point' has been reached, or so the bureaucrats in Brussels and Copenhagen would have us believe, with all the conviction of a substitute teacher losing control of a chemistry lab.

From the European perspective, there is a sublime irony in this. For decades, Europe has fashioned itself as the sophisticated, older sibling to the brash American experiment—a continent of history, nuance, and very expensive scarves. Yet here they are, reduced to arguing over whether or not their landmasses are for sale. The Danish Prime Minister’s initial response—calling the idea 'absurd'—was a rare moment of clarity in a world drowning in euphemism. But even that clarity is fleeting. Now, the talk has shifted from disbelief to 'retaliation.' We are entering the phase of the 'trade war,' that magnificent theater of the absurd where everyone loses, but everyone claims victory because they managed to make the other person lose slightly more.

The threat of retaliation is, of course, the EU’s favorite pastime. There is nothing a European official loves more than drafting a list of retaliatory tariffs on items specifically designed to hurt a politician’s feelings. We shall see taxes on bourbon, on motorcycles, on denim—the holy trinity of American identity. It is a war of symbols. On one side, we have a man who views the Arctic as a potential 18-hole golf course; on the other, we have a collective of nations that believe a strongly worded communique is a weapon of mass destruction. It would be comical if it weren't so profoundly exhausting. The world is burning, the glaciers in question are melting at a rate that suggests they are trying to escape the planet themselves, and the two most powerful blocs in the West are squabbling over the bill for a dinner no one actually wants to eat.

The sophisticated observer—those of us who have long since traded hope for a good bottle of Bordeaux—can only watch with a sense of 'I told you so.' We were told that globalism would bring us together, that the interconnectedness of markets would make war obsolete. Instead, it has simply turned every diplomatic disagreement into a hostage situation involving car parts and agricultural subsidies. The 'breaking point' is not a moment of moral awakening for Europe; it is merely the point where the cost of doing business becomes too high to ignore. There is no grand ideological stand being taken here. There is only the frantic scratching of pens on ledgers as the EU tries to figure out if it's cheaper to fight a trade war or simply wait for the American electorate to find a new shiny object to obsess over.

Ultimately, this crusade for Greenland is the perfect metaphor for our age. It is a quest for resources we don’t know how to manage, driven by an ego we don’t know how to contain, resisted by a bureaucracy that has forgotten how to lead. The trade war will likely manifest as a series of petty inconveniences for the middle class on both sides of the Atlantic, while the actors on the stage continue their performance. We are trapped in a theater where the exit doors are locked, the air conditioning is failing, and the lead actor has decided to start selling the seats to the highest bidder. If this is the breaking point, one can only wonder what the final collapse will look like. Most likely, it will be televised, sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, and preceded by an announcement that all sales are final.