Donald Trump and Ronald Lauder at Mar-a-Lago. Photo: Evan Vucci / AP / Profimedia
A businessman close to Donald Trump and a controversial geopolitical move that would bring prestige to the president, but also to the investments made in the meantime. Whether it's Venezuela or Greenland, the ingredients are always the same in the White House: rich friends, diplomatic rifts, money placed in the right place at the right time. And maybe, behind the scenes, the Kremlin's attempt to manipulate the American leader, writes Corriere Della Sera, taken over by Rador Radio Romania.
In Greenland's case, the key figure is New Yorker Ronald Lauder, 81, billionaire heir to the cosmetics empire and a classmate of Trump's at the Wharton School of Business. Lauder recently launched a series of investments in Greenland, according to an investigation by the Danish newspaper “Politiken”.
But this is only the latest step in its evolution. Lauder has a history of donating to conservative candidates, including at least $1 million in support of Trump in recent years. However, the cosmetics billionaire has pitched the president an idea in recent years: taking over Greenland.
John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser during his first term, has no doubts about that. Bolton himself, now at loggerheads with Trump, confirmed to The Free Press that it was Lauder who first planted the Greenland idea in the president's head. “I heard about it from him and later learned or understood that the suggestion came from Lauder,” Bolton said. “But Trump first talked to me in 2019.”
Lauder met twice in the Kremlin with Putin
This version confirms what journalists Peter Baker (of the “New York Times”) and Susan Glasser (of the “New Yorker”) wrote in their 2021 investigative book about Trump, “The Divider”: Trump reports that “a very rich friend” suggested doing business on the island, and this friend was none other than Lauder. It is not clear, however, where Lauder got the idea. The fact that Lauder, as president of the World Jewish Congress, has met with Vladimir Putin twice in the Kremlin – in 2016 and in March 2019 – leads some to speculate that it was the Russian leader who provoked the billionaire to refocus his friend Trump on the issue. Certainly, in recent days, Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's envoy, has repeatedly emphasized on his social media channels the White House's pressure to obtain Greenland.
Russia's interest in this game is obvious: an American territorial usurpation in the Arctic could distract Trump from Ukraine and legitimize Putin's own attempts against Kiev. However, there is no evidence that the Kremlin intervened to pressure Trump to take action against Denmark. There is only one suspicion, fueled by a fake letter received in October 2019 by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a Trump supporter: on the letterhead of the Greenlandic government and signed by one of its ministers, the letter sent to the senator announced in Washington “a referendum on independence from Denmark”. But it turned out to be a fake, from unknown authors.
Greenland's Delaware-registered investment company Greenland Development Partners, with capital from Lauder and interests in the water and energy sectors, is completely legitimate. Venezuela's model is similar, only this time with obvious Russian imprints.
Fiona Hill, who served on the National Security Council during Trump's first term, said in testimony before Congress that the Russians proposed a trade to the White House in 2019: giving the Americans a free hand in Venezuela in exchange for free action in Ukraine. Bolton and Hill dropped the offer at the time, but the business interests of Trump's friends have not faded.
Investor Paul Singer, who contributed $5 million to the president's last campaign, just in recent months bought three US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, designed specifically for Venezuela's crude oil. He's a business savvy: Just Wednesday, the Trump Administration announced it would bring crude oil from Caracas to the United States.
