[david-gpu]

You make a good point. At the same time, when he broke his electoral promise to stop foreign interfefence and kidnapped Maduro, his voter base did not turn against him. That seems to have emboldened him to pursue more military actions abroad.

Now let's see how long until he invades Cuba, and how his voters will react.

[pjc50]

God, they're going to love that - provided it's a swift victory, of course. They've wanted that since the Bay of Pigs.

[mothballed]

I wonder what Cuba would look like now if Batista had never been overthrown. That's probably on par with how it would have worked if US meddling were more successful. I can't say I know it would be worse.

[pjc50]

Difficult to separate "Cuba is bad because it is badly governed" from "Cuba is bad because it has been heavily sanctioned and no longer gets help from the Soviet Union", really. Too many different variables. Hard to imagine it being worse than Haiti or El Salvador, but also hard to imagine it having free elections (because that would immediately elect an anti-US socialist who would be overthrown again).

[nephihaha]

On the other hand, Cuba could have turned out like the Bahamas or Trinidad & Tobago.

[philipallstar]

Unlike Venezuela and Iran, Cuba doesn't really fuel China, so I assume it's not such a priority.

[bobthepanda]

I mean, in that case why rattle about Greenland?

[DFHippie]

Somebody, in a conversation of which there will be no record, told him it was a good idea, telling him it would be quick, he would be lauded as a hero, there would be vast mineral riches, etc. This person wanted to break up NATO, but this wasn't part of the sales pitch, I imagine.

[IOT_Apprentice]

Reportedly, Rare earth minerals.

[bobthepanda]

America also has those; and it’s not like we’ve had a bad trading relationship with the EU until fairly recently.

[philipallstar]

I think that was just silly. Nothing actually happened in Greenland. His whole thing is about slowing China down. That explains Venezuela, Iran, and a lot of the price-rising tariffs are explained by wanting to choke Russia's oil and gas revenues, which also has the secondary effect of hitting China.

[ben_w]

Almost everyone's asking the same question regardless of what they think's going on inside Trump's head. The two most coherent answers I've seen are "to soothe his narcissistic injury from being told he can't" and "feels entitled to it because NATO", you will note neither of these was his stated reason, and all of this is still catastrophically poor judgment on his part.