Trump seems obsessed with the idea of the US taking over Greenland, much to the alarm of European countries that support a continuation its current status as an semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. There is little support even from Greenlanders for becoming part of the US. He has even announced tariffs, the weapon that he uses for pretty much everything, to punish any countries that oppose this move, and has already applied it.

Trump said that “Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown,” a reference to the European countries who have said in recent days that they will send troops to Greenland as a show of solidarity with Denmark, after weeks in which Trump and top allies have renewed demands to take the territory. Most European countries have been vocal in their opposition to Trump’s efforts to take over Greenland.

Calling it a “potentially perilous situation,” Trump said he would impose 10 percent tariffs on imports of all goods starting Feb. 1 from those countries to the U.S., increasing to 25 percent on June 1. He said it would only be removed after a deal is reached for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

“This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet. These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable,” Trump said, embracing what amounted to a military threat against some of Washington’s closest and oldest allies.

Of course, he is the one who is playing a dangerous game. In the past European nations have shown themselves to be easily cowed by Trump’s earlier threats, which naturally makes him think that they are weak and can be ordered about. This issue is more significant but we will have to wait and see if they show more backbone. Trump claims that the US needs to take over Greenland to ‘protect’ it from being taken over by Russia or China, though there is little evidence that those two countries have made any moves towards doing so.

While it is true that Greenland has reserves of various minerals that might prove to be strategic, Trump’s weird fixation may also be driven by his obsession with size and his perception that Greenland is a huge landmass. As anyone with even an ounce of geographic knowledge knows, that size is an illusion, a distortion caused by trying to represent the globe of the world onto a flat surface, so that it could be easily stored or folded or rolled up to carry around. There are many ways to do this but each introduces some distortions, with the distortion becoming greater the more that one moves away from the equator.

The flat projection that became most popular was the one created in 1659.

The Mercator projection is a conformal cylindrical map projection first presented by Flemish geographer and mapmaker Gerardus Mercator in 1569. In the 18th century, it became the standard map projection for navigation due to its property of representing rhumb lines as straight lines.

This particular way of representing rhumb lines was what made this projection popular because it enabled better navigation at sea, which was one of the major uses of maps during those days when explorers were going to places that were hitherto unknown to them. It also has the benefit of more accurately showing the shapes of countries. But it also introduces the distortion of sizes.

When applied to world maps, the Mercator projection inflates the size of lands the farther they are from the equator. Therefore, landmasses such as Greenland and Antarctica appear far larger than they actually are relative to landmasses near the equator. Nowadays the Mercator projection is widely used because, aside from marine navigation, it is well suited for internet web maps.

Here is a Mercator map of the world between the latitudes of 85^oN and 85^oS.

Note that much of the lower half is occupied by Antarctica, which has no native population. Hence many maps cut off the part below the southern tip of South America, thus introducing another lesser-noticed distortion in that the equator is now no longer is in the middle. If you are not aware of this, you may think that the equator lies higher than it really is, and passes through the wrong countries.

I came across another map that seeks to correct misapprehensions about the sizes of countries.

Maybe someone should show Trump this map and remove at least one crazy idea from his ignorant brain. But he will hate it because it makes the US smaller.