I’ve said this elsewhere but this isn’t about minerals or national security. Trump just sees a big landmass on a map and saw Russia invade Ukraine and wants to one-up that.
He just sees something, decides he wants it without any real rationale and thinks people should give it to him solely because he wants it.
This is just who he is. It’s no different than the Nobel, which he essentially admitted in his letter. He continues to show us this and people keep trying to attribute some sort of tactical acumen or thoughtfulness to these desires when it just isn’t there.
i think you miss the point where china and russia are already situated there. EU + NA already rely on america for protection and defence. In the last 30 yrs, most of EU's spending shifted from military to social safety nets while americans footed the bill. And what did that achieve?
Open border policies that made EU and NA alot less safe, and aggressive china and russia expanding their world wide footprint.