Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, Sept. 17, 2025.Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press
Trump cards
Re “Rubio to meet officials as U.S. won’t rule out military invasion in Greenland” (Jan. 8): The extent of my military training consists of three months in the Brockville Rifles as a reservist in the 1970s, throwing cement-filled orange juice cans and yelling “bang, bang” for lack of blank ammunition. I am almost 70, but give me the means to get to Greenland and I’ll be more than happy to defend it.
I am aware that our politicians’ mealy mouthed responses to the egregious and unlawful behaviour of the United States are motivated by survival. However, I was raised on the kindness of The Friendly Giant and the civility of Walter Cronkite. I find it difficult to suppress my anger, if not tears, and desire to do something to stop the slow destruction of our collective humanity.
Richard Row Toronto
How do we make it difficult for Donald Trump to annex Greenland? Denmark could invite countries such as Britain, Canada and European Union members to send forces to Greenland for military exercises.
The U.S. military is superior to what any of these countries could muster, but that wouldn’t be the point: Stationing militaries from various countries would place diplomatic and military roadblocks.
I’m sure Mr. Trump does not want to engage any Western country militarily. As well, the illegality of such an act to the American population would become much more apparent.
It seems that Mr. Trump doesn’t want to be a part of NATO, and would pull out at some point if he decides to seize Greenland. I hope Europe and Canada are preparing for a world without NATO as Mr. Trump implements his “Donroe Doctrine,” and the world is split into spheres of dominance and subjugation.
David Bell Toronto
Re “Trump’s Venezuela operation sends a message: stay out of America’s sphere of influence” (Opinion, Jan. 10): The abduction of Nicolas Maduro is an indicator to me of American decline.
In recent decades, China became Latin America’s largest investor and second-largest trading partner, selling cutting-edge solar panels and electric vehicles that the United States can’t compete with. In contrast, the U.S. resorted to military force to gain control of some of the planet’s dirtiest oil.
Even the pretense of international law has been abandoned. Donald Trump has essentially justified Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as made an invasion of Taiwan by China more likely.
Marco Rubio seems to make it clear Venezuela will not have a democratically elected government any time soon. From Beijing’s perspective, what’s not to like?
Jack Hicks Sooke, B.C.
Meanwhile…
Re “Can Pierre Poilievre, all politics and no business, ever be prime minister?” (Jan. 5): I say borrowed Stetson, no cattle.
Andrew Bond Central Saanich, B.C.
Look East
Re “Canada needs to be realistic about what it can get from China with its relations reset” (Jan. 5): If Ottawa wants a practical, low-drama way to rebuild people-to-people ties between Canada and China, it should put sister-city relationships back on the policy map.
The sister-city movement began with postwar European “town-twinning,” and was later championed by Dwight Eisenhower’s “people-to-people” initiative. It is grounded in the idea that citizen diplomacy can reduce misperception and, over time, lower risk of conflict when ordinary residents, cultural organizations and municipal professionals work with their counterparts on concrete, everyday opportunities and challenges, not grand diplomatic bargains.
Canada already has many city-to-city links with China that need more attention. What’s missing is modest, transparent federal support, such as seed funding for reciprocal youth and professional exchanges, joint cultural programming and municipal collaboration on non-sensitive issues.
It won’t solve the hard files. But it’s tangible, relatively low-risk, and it helps builds the constituencies for stability with China that Canada needs.
Kenneth Klassen Winnipeg
Among other things, we are warned about guarding intellectual property from China. I’ve heard this concern expressed for years, but often wondered to what extent knowledge flows the other way.
I visited China in 1988 to lecture for a month. I thought all they got out of me was hearing a native English speaker. I’m sure I did more harm than good.
I did, however, have the good fortune to fly home from Beijing beside a Canadian scientist who specialized in soybean production. He told me he happily went expecting to teach them a thing or two, but was amazed to find that he learned more from them. In particular, their crop yields were greater than those in Canada.
Soybeans were a lesson for me. Reports about the remarkable quality and price of Chinese electric vehicles ought to be a lesson for the rest of us.
James Robert Brown London, Ont.
Spare change
Re “Ten-year timeline forecast for Supreme Court renovation” (Jan. 5): The “budget” for this will be more than $1-billion, while the cost of renovating Parliament’s Centre Block is expected to cost a much as $5-billion.
Maybe a million or two could be squeezed out of that $6-billion to renovate 24 Sussex?
Sidney Joseph Thornhill, Ont.
My generation
Re “America’s shocking silence in the face of Trump’s outrages” (Jan. 7): This, to my mind, is the greatest anti-U.S. gunboat diplomacy anthem ever: Phil Ochs’s Cops of the World from 1966.
“We own half the world, oh say can you see? / And the name for our profits is democracy / So like it or not, you will have to be free / ‘Cause we’re the cops of the world, boys / We’re the cops of the world.”
Linda Hershkovitz Toronto
As a professional musician, I find the invocation of war protest songs of previous generations to be at best selective and, more likely, disingenuous.
Defeatism is not restricted to the young, and it’s clear to me that powerlessness is something felt by every generation today. It’s a shame the troubadours of today seem to have so little to say about it.
The United States is not, unlike in the 1960s and 1970s, at war. However, the decision to remove a dangerous, illegitimate president in Venezuela seems not imprudent, given the damage he caused to that country and the millions of refugees who fled his regime.
There likely won’t be many protest songs written about Nicolas Maduro’s ouster, but the same can be said about the treatment of millions of oppressed people worldwide. There’s not much of a muse to be found when people feel no agency.
Maybe that’s the problem.
Matthew Larkin Ottawa
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