With the words “Make California Great Again” plastered across the top of the website, you may believe that it is nothing more than another Make America Great Again campaign, when it is quite the opposite. The Denmarkification movement was created as somewhat of a joke, poking fun at President Donald Trump’s statements about purchasing Greenland from Denmark with the tagline “Let’s Buy California from Trump – Denmark’s Next Big Adventure.”
Despite the lighthearted nature of the movement, it has already amassed almost 300,000 supporters, indicating that the idea of purchasing California from the United States is an appealing idea to many. Whether it be the offer from the campaign to rename Disneyland as Hans Christian Andersenland or animus towards the aggressive foreign stance that President Trump has taken, there are many reasons for the Danish people to be in favor of such a bid, even if it is nothing more than a large practical joke as of the moment.
Far from lighthearted is what this petition signals about growing foreign tensions with the United States, owing to President Trump’s unique foreign policy. Even before he took office, he drew quite a lot of backlash from foreign leaders through his statements about getting Greenland, an pseudo-independent nation under the jurisdiction of Denmark. When he took office and issued tariffs ranging from about 20% to 200%, many nations felt disgruntled by the implementation of the sweeping tariffs, sometimes issuing tariffs of their own in response worth tens of billions of dollars in the cases of Canada and the European Union. The growing animosity has been stoked in recent days with President Trump’s immigration policy resulting in members of ICE detaining visitors with valid visas, such as Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney, who claims to have been held in an ICE detention center despite having a valid work visa. Additionally, President Trump’s stance of LGBTQ+ issues has resulted in countries such as Denmark issuing travel warnings for LGBTQ+ people seeking to travel to the United States of America, further driving a wedge between Trump’s America and more progressive European countries.
While the movement to buy California from the United States remains comedic fiction, it shows just how far the United States has fallen in many foreign eyes. Having diplomatic relations that stretch back to the 18th century, the once calm waters between the United States and Denmark have been thrown into motion by President Trump’s foreign stance, potentially upsetting an allyship that has endured centuries.
