Here we go again. The big man in the red tie is back on his favorite hobby horse. He wants to buy Greenland. Yes, the whole thing. Like it is a used car or a foreclosure listing in Florida. He says the 'framework' for this deal includes mineral rights. That is a fancy way of saying we get to dig up their backyard and keep whatever shiny rocks we find.

Let’s be honest about what is happening here. It sounds like a joke. It sounds like something a cartoon villain would do. But it is very real, and it is incredibly stupid. It perfectly sums up everything wrong with how the world works right now. The Right thinks land is just money waiting to be grabbed. The Left cries about it but secretly loves the gadgets that come from the digging. And the rest of us just have to watch.

So, what is the deal with these minerals? Why does America want to buy a frozen island that is mostly ice and snow? It is not for the view. It is not because we love the cold. It is because underneath all that ice, there is stuff we 'need.'

They call them rare earth minerals. They have weird names like neodymium and dysprosium. You probably can't pronounce them. I can’t pronounce them. But you use them every single day. They are in your iPhone. They are in the guidance systems for missiles. They are in the batteries for those electric cars that are supposed to save the planet. That is the funny part.

Think about the irony here. The people who scream the loudest about saving the environment are the ones driving the demand for these rocks. To build a green future, we have to tear up a pristine white wilderness. To stop the ice from melting, we have to go up there and blast through the ice to get the metal for the wind turbines. It is a joke without a punchline.

Trump sees this clearly, in his own twisted way. He doesn't care about the culture of the people living there. He doesn't care about the history. He looks at a map and sees a resource. He sees a business deal. He wants to beat China. Right now, China controls most of these rare minerals. If China decides to stop selling them to us, our fancy fighter jets stay on the ground and your text messages don't go through. That scares the people in charge. So, the solution is simple: Buy the place that has the rocks.

The United States Geological Survey—the people who look at dirt for a living—say Greenland has the biggest stash of this stuff in the world outside of China. It is sitting right there. But it is under the ice. Or at least, it was. As the world gets hotter, the ice melts. And look at that, suddenly it is easier to start a mine. We are literally cooking the planet, and our reward is that it becomes easier to loot the Arctic. You cannot make this stuff up.

Most people think of Greenland as a quiet place. It has about 57,000 people. They have their own lives. They fish, they hunt, they live in one of the toughest places on Earth. Now imagine being them. Imagine sitting in your house, and hearing that the United States wants to buy your whole country because we need more magnets for our speakers. It is insulting. It treats human beings like they are just part of the real estate package, like the curtains or the carpets.

But don't think for a second that the other side is innocent. The politicians who hate Trump will go on TV and say this is awful. They will say we can't buy people. They will use big words about respect and rights. But then they will go back to their offices and approve a new budget for high-tech weapons that need those exact same minerals. They want the stuff; they just don't want to look like the bad guys while getting it. Trump just admits he wants to be the bad guy.

We are addicted to stuff. We are addicted to the newest phone, the fastest car, the biggest bomb. That addiction has to be fed. It doesn't matter if we buy the island or just bully them into letting us dig. The result is the same. The quiet, frozen North is going to get loud and dirty. The heavy machinery is coming.

This story isn't really about a real estate deal. It is about greed. Naked, unashamed greed. We ran out of easy stuff to dig up at home, so now we are looking north. We look at a beautiful, wild place and we don't see nature. We see dollar signs. We see battery components. We see leverage against China.

Trump talks about 'mineral rights' like he is ordering a side of fries. It is casual. It is boring to him. It is just another transaction. And that is the saddest part. We have reached a point where buying a country is just business news. It is not a scandal. It is just Tuesday. The ice is melting, the vultures are circling, and everyone is checking their stock portfolio. Welcome to the future. It looks a lot like a strip mine.