9 Reasons Why Trump Should Not or Does Not Need to Purchase Greenland

Shortly before President Trump assumed the presidency, it felt like he was trolling the American people when it came to foreign policy. Trump wanted to revisit the idea of owning the Panama Canal, in spite of President Carter relinquished it to Panama in 1977. Trump floated the idea of Canada becoming a 51st state of the United States to avoid tariffs. He also presented the idea of buying Greenland. Last Friday, Trump got into a reportedly "fiery" call with Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Prime Minister over the idea. That was after Anders Vistisen, a Danish member of European Parliament for the Right-leaning Danish People's Party, told Trump that Greenland is not for sale and for Trump to "fuck off." The reasons why the Danes' opinion matters in this instance is because Greenland is a self-governing country within the Danish Kingdom. 

This is not the first time that Trump has proposed buying Greenland. He did so in August 2019, which prompted me to write a blog entry on the policy idea. As I brought up in 2019, Greenland has natural resources of interest, particularly the rare earth metals that are necessary for our smartphones, computers, and other electronic goods. As the Arctic sea ice continues to melt, the Arctic Circle will become a more viable alternative for maritime travel than the Panama or Suez Canals. In terms of national security, Russia and China are more interested in that region of the world, which is piquing Trump's interest. 

It is more than the economic and national security implications that do not make the idea crazy. One, this country has purchased land before. In 1803, the United States paid $15 million to France to double the size of the United States. There was the acquisition of Florida in 1819, followed by the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million in 1867. Although it was considered Seward's Folly, I bet Russia is kicking itself for that transaction because of all the petroleum in Alaska. Two, this is not the first time purchasing Greenland has been a policy question. The United States considered purchasing Greenland in 1868 under President Andrew Johnson and in 1946 under President Truman. 

Three, purchasing Greenland sure beats going to war and trying to conquer it, especially since invading Greenland would likely be the end of NATO. Four, it is possible to be an independent or quasi-independent territory within the United States, as Guam, Puerto Rico, Micronesia, Northern Marina Islands, Palau, and the American Samoa have demonstrated. That being said, I do have objections to Trump's plan:

1) Neither Denmark nor Greenland want to sell Greenland. The Prime Minister of Greenland is trying to push for Greenland's independence. Meanwhile, Denmark is looking to spend $1.5 billion to bolster defense in Greenland. This will not work well if both sides are not on board. 

2) Denmark is a NATO ally. Not only could this upset Denmark, but it could have a ripple effect towards other NATO allies. It could even push Greenland to want to ally itself with Russia and China. 

3) The United States already has a military base in Greenland: the Pituffik Space Base. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, Trump can make progress on U.S. national security priorities with the already-existing engagement strategy that it shares with Greenland and Denmark.

4) It is unlikely that China and Russia would take over Greenland. Russia is already having enough issues with Ukraine. In 2018, Washington and Copenhagen fended off Chinese bids to build airports in Greenland. Even if either country decided to invade, the United States has the advantage of already having a military base on Greenland (see previous point) and proximity relative to Russia and China. I am sure there are more serious national security issues for the U.S. government to address. 

5) Yes, there are rare earth metals in Greenland. Wouldn't it be easier to simply purchase the mineral rights in the open marketplace instead of the entire country? After all, the United States imported $131.9 billion in mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products from Canada without making Canada the 51st of the United States of America. Ownership of Greenland is not a prerequisite to gain access to Greenland's rare earth metals. Plus, making Greenland part of the United States would make it more difficult to extract those rare earth metals due to the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).

6) One could argue that Greenland would benefit from an influx of American investment and increased tourism. However, Greenland does not need to be purchased. The goals of increased infrastructure, tourism, and immigration could be accomplished with bilateral trade agreements. 

7) The think-tank American Action Forum estimated the purchase price of Greenland at $2.8 trillion. Given the previous points plus the fact that United States has over $36 trillion in debt, can the United States really afford to add $2.8 trillion to its debt?

8) Given Greenland's remote location and harsh climate, the returns on investment remain uncertain. 

9) Greenland has a distinct cultural heritage, not to mention an indigenous Inuit population. It could prove difficult to integrate Greenland into U.S. society and culture, especially given the geographical and cultural distance between the two entities. 

Postscript. I know Trump gained his fame from being a real estate tycoon. He is known for "Art of the Deal." I am sure his past experience is playing into his desire to acquire Greenland, especially since he know has the backing of the world's most powerful military. The truth is that Trump should not try to acquire Greenland nor does he need to acquire Greenland. 

I do not think that the idea of purchasing a country is prima facie antiquated. Much like with individuals or companies within the private sector, I think these transactions are most successful when mutually beneficial and when there is mutual agreement. Given that the governments of Greenland or Denmark are on board with this proposal, I think that adds given reason to be against Trump's proposal. Trump can acquire the benefits through other means short of purchasing Greenland, whether that is bilateral trade agreements, mineral rights, or expanding military interests through the current engagement strategy. Let us hope that he can be convinced of those alternatives instead of making a foreign policy faux pas. 

Biden Was Not Lax on Immigration and the Border, In Spite of What Right-Wing Outlets Say

In his first days of office, President Trump did not waste any time, particularly with immigration. On his first day of his second term, Trump signed ten executive orders relating to immigration. This flurry of executive orders was to help fulfill Trump's campaign promise of mass deportation, a policy goal I had criticized last October. I am not going to get into particulars with each executive order today, whether it is about birthright citizenship, enhanced vetting, or expanding "expedited removal." I will say that this brings up a major, overreaching concern I had with Trump's immigration policy during his first term, which is that takes issue with legal immigration as much as he does illegal immigration. I strongly believe that such a stance on immigration is inopportune and unacceptable from an economic lens, as well as with regards to civil liberties. 

Along with international trade, immigration is the topic I have found myself most critical of the Trump administration. You might think that Biden was more amenable to immigration or his stance was so much more lax than that of Trump's. The idea of a border crisis was echoed by the think tank Heritage Foundation in multiple analyses. Fox News blamed Biden and his "border crisis" for causing a "tidal wave" of immigration, increasing the number of terrorists in the country, and also worsening K-12 education. The House Committee on Homeland Security and House Committee on Oversight also presented Biden as being weak on immigration and cracking down on the border crossings. 

The problem with asserting that Biden did not crack down on the border or that he was lenient on immigration is that it is not true. The Cato Institute was kind enough to provide a four-part series on why Biden did not cause the border crisis (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV). Here are some nuggets from the research:

Border enforcement did not decline during the Biden administration. You can look through the Department of Homeland Security data for yourself, but Biden expelled more immigrants than Trump. As we can see from the chart below, Biden wasted no time in expelling more immigrants in his first month in office than Trump ever managed during his entire first term. 

Not only did Biden expel more immigrants, Biden also expanded border detention and detention capacity from what Trump had during his first term. Right before the pandemic started, Trump's Custom and Border Protection (CBP) had 2,811 individuals in custody in February 2020. In the Biden administration, the peak reached to over 19,000 individuals, which was nearly twelve-fold in comparison to Trump. 

In February 2021, Biden opened up an additional processing facility and three more facilities two months later. Biden also sent 1,500 National Guard members to the border, as well as more asylum officers. Furthermore, Biden increased U.S. removal flights by 55 percent in comparison to the Trump administration. It was not only border detention that increased, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, as well (see below, as well as ICE data here).

As Migration Policy brings up, there were significantly more encounters at the border during the Biden administration than there ever were during Trump's first term. 

Far from being lax or lenient on the border, Biden was quite strict when it came to the border. If anything, Biden did more in terms of arrests, detentions, and expulsions than Trump did at any point during his first term in president. It might seem convenient to blame Biden because the influx of immigrants happened under Biden's watch. But there were factors that were not of Biden's doing or were in his control. 

One had to do with the pandemic itself. The economic impact of the COVID-era lockdowns caused enough of an economic downturn in the economies in the Western world. In the United States, the economic damage from the lockdowns was an estimated $9.8 trillion. Imagine what it did to parts of the world that were less economically stable, such as Central and South America. People want to leave that carnage for greener pastures, and understandably so. Combine that with the spike with the demand in labor that took place in February 2021 when businesses started opening up again. 

Then there was Title 42, which was Trump's idea to use the pandemic as a guise to expel immigrants and refugees. As I pointed out in my May 2023 analysis of Title 42, Title 42 most likely ended up incentivizing repeat border crossings. It was a combination of decreased labor demand, eliminating Title 42, and increasing the legal entries of asylum seekers that brought the spike in border crossings down in 2024. 

What worries me is that the "Biden was weak on immigration" argument has been used as a pretext by the Trump administration to be even more gung-ho on cracking down on immigration. This myth will contribute to the decline of immigration overall. The truth is that legal immigration decreased under Trump while illegal immigration increased. Much like Trump did first term, he will likely go after legal immigration much more than he will illegal immigration, especially since legal immigration is higher and illegal immigration much lower than it was during Trump's first term. Immigration is a net boon for the United States, even when you factor in those immigrants that are considered "low-skilled." Trump clearly did not learn that lesson during his first term as President. It looks like he will spend his second term undermining immigration, thereby undermining American prosperity.  

Israel Is Paying Quite the Cost for This Horrid 2025 Gaza Ceasefire "Deal"

Seizing captives for military or financial gain has a long history dating back to Julius Caesar. Unfortunately for Israel, this is a tactic that Hamas understands too well. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists entered Israel and attacked Israeli civilians. Part of Hamas' barbarism entailed kidnapping over 240 civilians. Since that infamous day in Israeli history, Hamas has been using hostages as pawns in its insidious goal to wipe out Jews, much like its cynical ploy to use Gazan civilians as human shields in order to gain international sympathy. This past Sunday began what is meant to be a three-part ceasefire that is intended to put an end to the fighting in Gaza. 

Israel was pressured into this bad deal by the United States. One, President Biden could tout a foreign policy by claiming credit for the ceasefire. Also, Trump threatened that "all hell would break out" if the hostages were not released by the time he became president. It is disheartening to see Trump try to haphazardly put pressure on Israel so he could avoid a foreign policy embarrassment early in his second term. Trump might think the deal is "epic," but it is a capitulation to a relentless terrorist organization.

I criticized the idea of a ceasefire last January and I still stand by the opinion that Israel should not sign a ceasefire. Ceasefires between Israel and Hamas have not worked in the past. If they were meant to be an effective peacemaking mechanism, we would have seen it by now. Whether it was 2009, 2012, 2014, 2019, or 2021, Hamas would take advantage of the ceasefire to regroup, rearm, and eventually attack Israel again. As former Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed, Hamas nearly replaced its losses by recruiting new fighters. How long again before Hamas decides to attack Israel again?

Israel's withdrawal from various parts of Gaza were fought with the blood of 400 Israeli soldiers, as well as the blood, sweat, and tears of other Israeli soldiers. The ground Israel gained through this arduous urban warfare has given the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) the upper hand. Such a withdrawal would give a militaristic advantage to Hamas, especially since Hamas hides in these populated areas from where the IDF would withdraw. It would also mean that those IDF soldiers loss their life for naught. Giving up this ground would most likely perpetuate the conflict, as is reinforced from the previous paragraph. 

Furthermore, there is no one there to replace Hamas, including Fatah. That means if Israel withdraws from Gaza, Hamas remains in charge of the area. Hamas is a terrorist organization hellbent on exterminating Jews and has shown no signs whatsoever that it will be deterred from that mission. Plus, it is not like the Gazans can scream "Occupation" since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Since a ceasefire does not address the Jew-hatred of Hamas and so many of Gaza's citizens, how does a ceasefire ignoring the root causes resolve the conflict in the Middle East? 

Then there is the matter of the ratios are way too lopsided. Israel is expected to trade 30 terrorists for one civilian hostage and 50 terrorists for each female soldier. Some of these prisoners have committed some horrible acts against humanity. It is even more twisted that the hostages will not all be released at once. What do you think these hardened criminals will do? Turn over a new leaf? They will most likely pick up where they left off. Anyone with anything remotely resembling a moral compass knows this arrangement is off-kilter. 

Regrettably, Israel already set the precedent in lopsided hostage-prisoner swaps. In 2011, Israel released over 1,000 Palestinian terrorist prisoners for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. I was elated to see Shalit released from captivity. Conversely, I have to wonder if it was worth the price. After all, one of those prisoners released in 2011 was Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 attacks. Although unintended and unforeseeable, Israel's hostage-prisoner swap in 2011 was responsible for hundreds more being murdered about 12 years later. What future butcherer will Israel release from prison if it goes through with the entirety of this latest ceasefire? And how is it justice to release men who have committed heinous crimes, especially for the families of the victims of said crimes? 

I could only imagine the hell the hostages have endured. I wish there was not a hostage situation or that we could live in a world where there could actually be peace in the Middle East. I think it has been way too long that this war and hostage situation has occurred. I do not want to belittle the joy that the families of the hostages will upon seeing their loved ones or the relief that Gazan civilians will feel with a hiatus in the fighting. As 9/11 taught the United States, the sort of political pressure created by the hostages can be immense enough to want the Israeli people to take a deal, no matter what the long-term consequences are. It makes me wonder if the Israeli government is gaining some short-term relief in exchange for another attack as horrific, if not more so, than October 7. 

This subpar ceasefire rewards the terrorists while undermining Israeli national security. As Econ 101 teaches, you get more of what you reward. Incentivizing Hamas to kidnap and torture civilians in the future so they can be used as bargaining chips, much as we have already seen take place. Donald Trump, the man renown for the "Art of the Deal," should be able to do better than pressure a deal that is likely to cause greater instability in the Middle East, thereby being the President's first foreign policy faux pas of his second term. In the meantime, I hope that the hostages come home and that there can be a speedy end to this conflict that can ensure lasting peace in that conflict-ridden region of the world. 

Studies Show Hurricanes Not Increasing in Power Dissipation: Another Coup to Climate Change Hysteria

Those who believe that climate change will be the end of mankind tell us that all we need to do is drastically cut our carbon emissions to avert Armageddon. It would explain why the Biden administration was gung-ho with such climate policies as onerous power grid regulations, water heater energy efficiency standards, stricter emissions standards to encourage electric vehicle purchases, or the Inflation Reduction Act. Let's take a look at President Biden's response to Hurricane Helene as an example:

Nobody can deny the impact of climate crisis anymore. At least I hope they don't. They must be brain-dead if they do. Scientists report that with warming oceans powering more intense rains, storms like Helene are going to get stronger and stronger. 

Forgetting the irony of a man with clear cognitive decline commenting on brain function for a moment, I have to question the general premise of his claim that "climate change's impact on hurricanes is so obvious that someone with half a brain can realize it." I hate to break it to Biden and climate change activists everywhere, but it is decidedly not the case. 

In September 2024, the scientific journal Nature published a study showing a decreasing trend in the destructive potential of cyclones, which include typhoons and hurricanes (Tu et al., 2024). These Chinese meteorologists used a "power dissipation index" (PDI), which combines storm intensity, duration, and frequency, to determine whether hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons have become more intense in the past four decades. Guess what they found? The overall global trend is that the PDI is on the decline, whereas it remains steady in the North Atlantic (see below; see Addendum for further detail). 

As much as I would like to say that I am surprised by these findings backed by meteorological data, I am not. Shortly after Hurricane Ian in 2022, I wrote a piece on how the media continued to exaggerate the effects of climate change on hurricanes. I had pointed out how weather-related deaths have been on the decline, the normalized cost of hurricanes (which adjusts for population and property construction increases) remained relatively constant, and that the number of overall hurricanes and major hurricanes has not increased. 

I can point to a study from the Heritage Foundation that was released in December (D'Aleo and Dayaratna, 2024) about how the lack of trends in hurricane activity since the mid-1800s (see chart above). I suspect that Biden would not read a Heritage Foundation report, much less heed it, because the Heritage Foundation is on the Right. Instead, maybe President Biden should listen to his National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which found the following: 

• "There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes. Similarly for Atlantic basin-wide hurricanes, there is not strong evidence for an increase since the late 1800s in hurricanes, major hurricanes, or the proportion of hurricanes that reach major hurricane intensity." 
• "After adjusting for a likely under-count of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era, there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts. The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s." 
• While the NOAA projects that the lifetime maximum intensity of Atlantic Hurricanes will increase by about 5% during the 21st century, NOAA also projects "substantial decrease (~25%) in the overall number of Atlantic and tropical storms." 
• "After adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms, there remains just a small nominally positive trend (not statistically significant) in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006." 
• "We conclude that historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in: frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes." 

Aside from the ubiquitous nature of climate change, what draws people's attention is the notion of "if it bleeds, it leads." That is why climate change activists and their allies have to resort to using low-probability models with tenuous assumptions to make their case. The fact that actual meteorological data show that hurricanes in the Atlantic or cyclones and typhoons in other regions of the world are not getting worse, at least indicated by the PDI, in spite of increased carbon emissions undermines the climate change hysteria. It is why I remain skeptical of climate change fear-mongering. We should focus on policy alternatives to mitigate the effects of hurricanes, which can include constructing hurricane-resilient buildings, privatizing flood insurance, and eliminating price gouging laws. Giving into climate change hysteria like the former President has done will do nothing to help us weather future hurricanes.

1-30-2025 Addendum: I had a spouse of a longtime friend reach out and comment on this blog entry since he is an electrical engineer by trade and has a passion for climate change. He correctly pointed out that the Nature study points out there has been a slight increase in intensity (See Figure below, Part B) and that this increase was caused by various atmospheric phenomena. I concede this point where I changed the title of this blog entry and made some other tweaks to acknowledge the fact that intensity has indeed been increasing. 

I will also point out that the overall PDI is on the decline due to decrease in frequency and duration (See Figure above, Parts A and C). The authors point out that the PDI has been more commonly used in the literature instead of focusing on a singular factor, such as intensity or frequency. There could be a methodological flaw in how each factor in the PDI is weighted or whether there are other considerations that should be factored into PDI. I am sure that debate could be had by experts who know more about this than I do because my profession in the field of public policy and I cannot possibly know everything about every topic. 

At the same time, it begs an important question for me. If PDI is indeed being more frequently used as a metric for tropical storm severity in the field of climate change, why is PDI not increasing if climate change is supposed to engender apocalyptic change? At the very least, it has me think that the magnitude of climate change is not as obvious as President Biden makes it out to be. Maybe I will get a lengthy response from my friend's spouse addressing some of these concerns, which is why I would not be surprised if this topic ends up being a future blog entry.

Meta Removing Fact-Checkers and Its DEI Initiative Are Welcomed Steps Towards Freedom and Sanity

As we approach the inauguration of Donald Trump for his second term, the tech company Meta is making the news. Meta is famous for such products and services as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads. The reason for the hullabaloo around Meta is because last week, Meta made a major announcement about how it will approach content moderation. You can read analysis from the Cato Institute about what the changes entail.  

In response to the 2016 election, Zuckerberg hired fact-checkers to give users better information and combat misinformation. In reality, it ended up destroying more trust than it created because the fact-checkers were too politically biased, as Zuckerberg declared on The Joe Rogan Experience last week. In light of Meta's fact-checkers backfiring, Zuckerberg decided to replace fact-checkers with a Community Notes function similar to X (formerly Twitter). 

Barring extreme exceptions, the Community Notes option allows user to flag posts and add notes to it rather than downright censorship. While imperfect, studies examining Community Notes has been shown to mitigate the spread of misinformation while still preserving freedom of speech. It beats the inconsistency and frequent biases (typically those Left-of-center) that come with fact-checkers. 

I think this freedom of speech aspect of this policy change is important. Zuckerberg admitted that during the pandemic, the Biden administration would call to pressure Meta employees to suppress various COVID information that it deemed "misinformation." Given how off the mark the government was with providing accurate COVID-related information, a topic that I have covered extensively since the beginning of the pandemic, I can hardly blame people for feeling hoodwinked. 

While I think in part it was a decision to curry favor with President-Elect Donald Trump, it was also a good business move. Why? Because for-profit businesses care about their bottom line. They are not in business for charity, but to maximize the amount of business they conduct. When market demands shift, businesses need to change with those demands if they want to remain in business. As Zuckerberg recognized, there has been a shift in demanding reliability, transparency, and freedom of speech. 

Not only are they demanding greater freedom of speech, they are demanding an end to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) insanity. That market trend would explain why Meta announced last week, a few days after the announcement about content moderation, that it would discontinue its DEI program.

I would argue that the trend against DEI started when the Supreme Court rightfully affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits racial discrimination except in the most narrow of circumstances, which would include affirmative action. Since then, a number of major companies have discontinued or scaled back considerably their DEI initiatives, including Ford, Walmart, McDonald's, John Deere, and Toyota. I hardly blame these companies. 

DEI perpetuates racism, not to mention that it is a narrow-minded worldview that harms people of all races. As a formidable study from Rutgers concluded last year, mainstream modern-day DEI initiatives unsurprisingly increase hostility, racial tensions, and left-winged authoritarianism. This sort of toxicity is bad for the workplace and bad for business, which is why I would surmise that Zuckerberg realized the extent to which people have had it with DEI, especially when he said that the election was a cultural tipping point for free expression.  

The ones that are upset with Zuckerberg's decision are the ones that were happy with the censorship and DEI reigning supreme, mainly those on the Far Left who have loved controlling the narrative. They are upset because it is a potent sign that the people are fed up with Left-wing, woke authoritarianism and yearn to be free. Between the results of the 2024 elections and the increasing anti-woke sentiments, the Left is losing both its political power and cultural clout. Regardless of the reason for Meta's policy changes or how the political Left reacts to these cultural and political changes, I hope that we continue to see greater freedom of speech on social media instead of treating freedom of speech as something optional and conditional that can be swept aside when the government declares an emergency, much like it did during the pandemic. 

"Islamophobia" Is a Guise to Silence Legitimate Criticism of Islam That a Free Society Cannot Afford

Last week was the ten-year anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical magazine. In the 2010s, Charlie Hebdo published a number of cartoons criticizing Islam. This included satirizing the Islamic prophet Mohammad in cartoon form. While not explicitly banned in the Quran, it is commonly considered verboten in Islamic society to make an image of Mohammad. Some even consider it blasphemy in Islamic law, and therefore punishable by death. On January 7, 2015, two French-born Algerian brothers thought precisely that and targeted Charlie Hebdo employees. They killed 12 people and injured an additional 11 people. 

Unfortunately, this was not the first nor the last Islamist attack in world history. More recently, there was the attack in New Orleans earlier this month and the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany last month. This also is part of a much larger trend of increased Islamist attacks. As the French think tank Fondation pour l'innovation politique shows in its database, there were 66,872 Islamist terrorist attacks between 1979 and April 2024, 84.4 percent of them having occurred within the last decade. 

I can imagine someone pointing out this reality and calling it "Islamophobic," much like those on the Woke Left like to call almost everything racist. The term "Islamophobia" is a confusing term. There are people who sadly discriminate based on the color of skin. We use such terms as "racism" or "xenophobia" to describe the problem. There is no race of Muslim people.  There are nearly two billion Muslims belonging to various ethnic groups across the planet.

Islam refers to a religion, a faith, a system of ideas. Criticizing Islam means criticizing various ideas, not a racial demographic. We do not use the term "Christophobia" or talk about anti-Christian sentiment in that way. Nor do we use such terms as "Marxophobia" or "Free-market-phobia" to describe antipathy towards given ideologies. To quote philosopher and author Sam Harris:

Honestly criticizing the doctrine of Islam does not entail bigotry against Arabs or any other group of people. It is not an expression of hatred to notice that specific Islamic ideas--in particular, beliefs about martyrdom, and jihad, and blasphemy, and apostasy--inspire terrible acts of violence. And it's not an expression of phobia--that is, irrational-fear--to notice that violent religious fanatics don't make good neighbors.

Per the suffix "-phobia," it implies that there is an irrational fear. Rational fears exist and the problem in this instance is that there are rational fears to be had. It is precisely the ideas and the implementation of said ideas that Islam's critics, myself included, have found to be so problematic. So what is there to fear? 

If you are gay, I would say there is plenty to legitimately fear. There are nine Muslim-majority countries in which a gay man can be executed for consensual gay sex, not to mention additional Muslim-majority countries that use the law to punish and incarcerate gay people.  What about women in Iran or Afghanistan who have to worry about the morality police, women in Sudan who can be punished for talking to a man who is not her husband, or the female genital mutilation that is all too common in Somalia? And what about a Muslim who loses their faith? Apostasy is punishable by death in Islamic law. I am sure that author Salman Rushdie felt (and very well might still do) when people threaten his life or try to kill him. Or how about those who kill those who mock Islam, as we saw with the Charlie Hebdo attack? 

While Islam could theoretically undergo a Reformation much like Christianity began its Reformation when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church in 1517, there are no signs of Islam undergoing a Reformation or Enlightenment. That might have something to do with the fact that whatever faction of moderate Muslims exists is dealing with its own legitimate fear of being attacked or murdered by Islamists. What people in the Western world consider to be radical and authoritarian is normalized in the Muslim world. 

I know these survey data are dated, but I went back to 2013 survey data from Pew Research. Pew asked Muslims across the world about sharia law and what they consider to be immoral. It is not simply that most Muslims want sharia law implemented. Most Muslims also take issue with homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, and drinking alcohol while a significant minority support honor killings. If you look at the Freedom House rankings for the fifty-plus Muslim-majority nations, you will see that none of them are considered "Free" in terms of political freedom or civil liberties. They do not fare much better under the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. 

Like with the Far Left's use of other "phobias," whether it is homophobia, xenophobia, or transphobia, Islamophobia is a linguistic shift to silent dissent by conflating race with belief. Media outlet Spiked Online explains that "Islamophobia" is used as a cudgel to stigmatize or criminalize any critique of Islam as racist. To show where things stand, the Islamic Human Rights Commission gave its "Islamophobe of the Year" to the editorial staff at Charlie Hebdo only a few weeks after terrorists massacred them for publishing cartoons of Islam's prophet Muhammad. And it is amazing how many in the West go along with the "Islamophobia" trope.  

Yes, there is legitimate fear that gay people, women, apostates, and non-Muslims can have for being punished under Islamic society. There is legitimate fear that Islam is not here to coexist with people of religious persuasions, but rather to dominate and subjugate, as Muslim polities have done since Muhammad became a warlord in the seventh century. 

Denmark banning Quran burning to shield Muslims from being offended is but one example of how they are shaping the Western world to be as oppressive and authoritarian as the Muslim-majority countries. But if you criticize how sharia law is implemented in Muslim-majority countries or what a significant faction of Muslims living in Europe and other parts of the Western world would like to implement, you are wrongfully branded an "Islamophobe." To quote Sam Harris again:

And while every religion has its fanatics, there is only one religion on Earth where even its mainstream members of the faith seek to impose their religious taboos on everyone else. There is only one religion that has made it unsafe for people to criticize it, or indeed, for its own members to leave it. Only Muslims routinely fear for their lives when they decide to leave their  religion--and this is true, even in the West. If you doubt this, just read some books or listen to podcasts by ex-Muslims. 

As I brought up ten years ago, criticizing Islam is not Islamophobic and practitioners of Islam are not entitled to a life free of offense, criticism, or downright mockery. Being in a free society means that we can criticize, and by extension, offend others with what we believe or say. Those who silence criticism of Islam are committing an egregious linguistic sleight of hand that is eroding democracy and pluralism. At the end of the day, mimicking the intolerance of Islamists with censorship is not the way to go if we want to ultimately avoid being subjugated under authoritarian rule. 

Did the European Union Really Need to Mandate USB-C Chargers?

As millions across the world were enjoying their time off for the Christmas holiday, the European Commission had something else in mind. On December 28, which is under two weeks ago, the European Commission announced that a mandate stating that USB-C charger is the standard charger for charging electronic devices in Europe is now in force. The law will cover laptops starting in 2026, whereas it covers such devices as cell phones, tablets, keyboards, mice, and earbuds. This is not exactly news since the European Parliament adopted the law in April 2022. 

Why did the Commission implement this law? According to a European Commission report released in June 2022, the two goals were to a) save €250 million ($258 million) on "unnecessary charger purchases" and b) reduce e-waste by 1,000 tonnes annually since proprietary chargers (such as those from Apple) will no longer be legal. In short, the justification of the EU mandate was to benefit consumers and the environment. While this might sound like a lovely win, it forgets one of the basic rules of public policy, mainly that there are not any silver-bullet solutions, only tradeoffs. 

The biggest tradeoff of concern is that this mandate would stifle innovation. The reality is that smartphone chargers and ports went through multiple iterations and stages of evolution. In the early stages of smartphones, Apple was using annoying 30-pin chargers for their iPhones. Other companies were using micro- and mini-USB. Companies eventually reached the point of creating the Lightning charger, followed by the USB-C. As Cato Institute fellow Jennifer Huddleston rightfully points out, "a more regulated marketplace might have stopped this development in its tracks, letting bureaucrats who prioritize uniformity over all else decide on a single standard rather than letting the market evolve." It does not make sense to lock a fast-paced, innovative market into a single standard. It would be predictable to see the roll-out of newer technologies delayed, whether that is faster wireless charging or advanced power delivery systems.

There is the environmental cost to transitioning to the USB-C charger. While the Commission anticipates that it will reduce e-waste, I doubt their optimism. The EU's estimate was made based on data from a decade prior when there were 30 chargers in the market (as opposed to the current three, thereby less likely to reduce waste). Many phone makers separate the charging block from the charging cable, thereby creating less waste. Since only 29 percent of phones had USB-C chargers prior to the mandate, this will force many to throw out and replace their existing chargers, thereby offsetting the reductions in e-waste this mandate was meant to generate. 

I think the EU is trying to appear like it's addressing e-waste, although a 2020 report from the United Nations, chargers represent 0.1 percent of the 53.6 million tons of tech garbage created each year. It is an example of feel-good environmentalism that does not address the broader issue of electronic waster created by non-recyclable components. And it is not only the environmental aspect that is suspect. While it makes the selection process easier for consumers, it does not help consumers. According to a December 2019 report from Copenhagen Economics, this law would create €1.2 billion in consumer loss, which exceeds the estimated €13 million in environmental benefits. 

At least when it comes to chargers, the European market is now at the mercy of bureaucrats to decide that better technology has been developed and the current mandate would no longer be required. I would not hold my breath for bureaucrats to move quick when it comes to innovation. Take Japan as an example. It was in 2022 when Japan's Minister of Digital Affairs finally launched an initiative to eliminate mandates that still require the use of floppy disks and CDs for business filings. 

Instead of using heavy-handed regulations to force product harmonization and disincentivize innovation, the EU should encourage voluntary industry-led practices and market-driven standards to reduce e-waste. But the European Commission has developed a habit of watching mostly foreign companies develop innovative products and the Commission stepping in to pass laws that are typically counterproductive. I would hardly consider this the most egregious example of government regulation, but it does serve as another case study as to why regulatory standards lower the quality of our lives. 

Biden Blocking Nippon's Acquisition of U.S. Steel Undermined National Security Instead of Improving It

In December 2023, Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel offered to buy U.S. steelmaker U.S. Steel at a 40 percent premium on its stock price. Nippon Steel even offered unprecedented veto power over the merged entity's future U.S. plant closure decisions to allay Biden's concerns, but it was not enough. It also did not matter that 98 percent of the U.S. Steel shareholders approved the $14.9 billion deal in April 2024 or that Biden's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) could not find a national security threat from the acquisition.  Biden decided to block the proposed acquisition last week anyway. Why? Biden believes "there is credible evidence" that Nippon Steel "might take action to impair the national security of the United States." Biden does not actually state what credible evidence might exist. That reason for that is because there is no credible evidence. 

As I pointed out in my April 2024 analysis on the acquisition, the acquisition would not have harmed the United States' national security. Forget for a moment that Japan has been a military ally to the U.S. since the 1960s or that Nippon Steel already operates numerous steel plants in the United States. The Pentagon only needs about 3 percent of domestic steel production. Rather than looking to hinder steel production, Nippon Steel was looking to inject money into capital investments ($2.7 billion, to be precise) to produce steel in the United States. The steel industry needs new technology and innovation, which the U.S. has now been deprived of due to Biden's decision. 

Third, the Pentagon does not procure steel from U.S. Steel, making the national security argument all the more tenuous. More to the point, I illustrated how the acquisition could actually help with national security. By making U.S. Steel more efficient, the acquisition could have bolstered the U.S.-Japanese alliance. Here are a few additional points to consider on how Biden actually made matters worse:

• U.S. Steel was unprofitable for most of the past fifteen years. Even if the Pentagon procured steel from U.S. Steel, how exactly does allowing for a steel producer to continue flailing help national security?
• The Right-leaning Hudson Institute, which is known for its national security expertise, concluded in its report on the Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel proposal "that this proposed transaction would advance American economic, national security, and political interests at a time when the needs for secure domestic steel production and supply chains are paramount."
• As the authors pointed out, Japan is the leading foreign direct investor in the United States. The Nippon Steel acquisition was meant to be a sign of goodwill to bolster that alliance. 
• Nippon Steel's injection of capital would have better empowered the United States to withstand the dumping of excess Chinese steel into U.S. markets. 
• Economic and industrial competitiveness is what has historically been helpful to U.S. national security. Strengthening the U.S. steel in the capacity, quality, and cost-effectiveness that would have come with the U.S. Steel acquisition would have put the U.S.' national security on better footing in the future. 
• In December 2023, the bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party recommended that Japan be added to a whitelist of allies to received fast-track investment approval precisely because Japan has been such a good ally (see page 32 of the report). That hardly sounds like the consideration one would give a national security threat. 
• Blocking the acquisition contradicts the Biden administration's own articulation of national security assessments. As the Atlantic Council brings up, this precedent could "justify interventions into transactions for broader economic competitiveness reasons or to favor domestic political allies." No kidding! Biden caved into the influences of steelmaker Cleveland Cliffs, much like Biden acquiesced to the American Federation of Teachers with school closures in the pandemic era (see p. 415 of this House Oversight Committee report). This sort of politicization has the real potential to undermine national security in the future.
• The acquisition could have helped advance such elements of national security as friend shoring and de-risking from China. 

The aforementioned arguments should make it evidently clear that Nippon Steel acquiring U.S. Steel is not a national security threat. By Biden erroneously labeling it one, it makes it more difficult for allies and partners to trust the United States, which also undermines national security because it erodes trust in the U.S.' allies while abusing the law out of political gain. Giving into these protectionist instincts to prohibit the investment and operation in the U.S. also means less foreign investment which, you guessed it, undermines national security. Economic logic are legal arguments go to the back burner when politicking is involved. Biden has tarnished his political career and made his reputation more disgraceful by making the national security of the United States worse off with his decision to block the acquisition. 

Why Amnesty International Accusing Israel of Genocide Is Pure Rubbish (Pt. III)

Since October 2023, Israel has been fighting a war it did not start. It is fighting an enemy in Gaza that neither has respect for international law nor for the wellbeing of its civilians. Aside from the military war happening in the Middle East, Israel has been fighting against misinformation. Israel has been called an apartheid state, an occupier, a colonizer, and most egregiously, a state hellbent on committing genocide. The problem with all these charges, but especially the genocide charge, is that they are patently false. The supposed human rights organization Amnesty International recently released a report on the bogus charge of Israel committing genocide. It has raised my ire enough where we are on Part III of this blog series refuting the charge of genocide. 

In Part I, I outlined the legal definition of genocide under international law and how Israel's actions do not constitute genocide. In a predetermined fashion, Amnesty International assumed Israel's guilt, which included complaining that international law does not conform to their predetermined conclusions, ignoring Hamas' genocidal intent, and taking Israel's actions out of context. The genocide charge also ignores Gaza's growing population. News flash: if there's actual genocide, the population notably declines; it does not increase. 

In Part II, I pointed out that Israel would not have a multiethnic society with 1.8 million Muslims if it was intent on wiping out Arab Muslims. I then mention how a genocidal regime would not try for "land for peace" for seven decades; it would simply wipe out the intended target. Afterwards, I detail how Israel has done its way to avoid civilian harm in a manner unprecedented in military history. I want to start Part III today by showing how Hamas' action by illustrating that Hamas has no disregard for civilian life. 

Hamas' actions towards its civilians during wartime needlessly increases casualties. In contrast to the IDF doing its best in urban warfare conditions, Hamas hides its weapons in civilian infrastructure and has been using its citizens as human shields since 2007. Why? Such a strategy means that either the IDF's operations are undermined or there will be higher civilian casualties. In either way, Hamas wins because it does not care about civilians dying. 

Combined with the fact that this war is happening in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, I find it impressive that the IDF can keep the civilian to combatant ratio as low as it has. The United Nations has found that civilians have accounted for 90 percent of modern-day wartime casualties, which has been corroborated by other research. 

I do not trust Hamas' claim that 46,000 Palestinians have died in the Israel-Hamas war because they have been guilty of fatality data manipulation. This December 2024 report from the Henry Jackson Society sheds some light on the matter. But let us assume that the 46,000 figure is correct, as well as the IDF's estimate that 17,000 of those deaths were Hamas militants (although it's an undercount since the figure is from October). Even if some claimed correctly that the number of dead militants is actually only 8,500 dead, that 18.5 percent of the deaths being combatants would still be below the civilian-to-combatant ratio for modern-day warfare. It would be all the more impressive if the "17,000 dead militants" figure is correct (meaning 37 percent were combatants).

Amnesty International is not a trustworthy source. For one, let us start with the fact that Amnesty International's own employees in Israel disagree with the assessment. Do the employees at Amnesty Israel think that the IDF's actions are problematic? Yes. Do they amount to genocide? Not according to Amnesty Israel. In terms of the assessment itself, much of the citations are either self-referencing or a referencing the terrorist organization Hamas in a one-sided fashion. 

Amnesty International has never accused another nation of committing genocide in recent history. That includes the 580,000 dead Muslims under Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, ISIS' attacks on the Yezidi minority in Syria, the 233,000 Muslims killed in the Yemeni Civil War, the 150,000 murdered in the current civil war in Sudan, or the Chinese government's persecution of the Muslim Uyghur population. There are multiple countries riddled with war and conflict that have higher death tolls than the highest estimates than the current Israel-Hamas War, and AI alleges that only one country -- Israel -- is committing genocide? It is the similar bias with which the United Nations passes more resolutions against Israel than it does any other nations, including the aforementioned nations killing thousands of their own citizens.

Also, notice what there is not coming from AI, which is reporting on Hamas' dehumanizing racist rhetoric. It is not exactly a secret that Gazan society is full of Jew hatred. After all, UNRWA teachers have been teaching this anti-Jewish bigotry at UNRWA schools for years. In spite of the genocidal intentions that Hamas has explicitly expressed since its founding in 1988, AI manufactures the bogus case that only Israel is guilty. AI took a similar potshot its 2022 report lobbing the false accusation of apartheid against Israel, not to mention the number of other times AI has exhibited a blatant anti-Israel bias over the years. 

Postscript. Israel's actions in Gaza are not genocide, either in demonstrable, moral, or legal terms. Hamas initiated an unjust war with mass attacks on noncombatants and population centers. There is a difference between fighting a just war jus ad bellum that the other side started versus committing a genocide. It is not genocide when the Palestinians are losing a war that they started with a blatant human rights violation. Instead of intentionally killing civilians, the IDF has tried its utmost to save Palestinian civilians, even in spite of Hamas' best efforts to use their citizens as human shields and maximize casualties. Put the blame where it rightfully belongs: Hamas, the de facto ruling government of Gaza. 

Amnesty International pre-determined that Israel was guilty before it wrote the report. Having found no actual genocide, Amnesty International dismisses international law and attempts to redefine genocide while taking quotes out of context to make Israel look worse than it is. What has become clear is that Amnesty International is more interested in smearing Jews than it is in actual human rights advocacy. AI's bias reminds us that the anti-Semites believe that "if there are no Jews, it is not news." That is how messed up this latest form of anti-Semitism is, especially when the anti-Semites declared Hamas' actions on October 7 as resistance. Judging Israel by a different legal and moral standard than everyone else while judging the terrorist Hamas regime by zero standards is "undiluted bigotry."

By accusing Israel of genocide, Amnesty International attempts to neuter Jewish trauma in order to wage political war against Israel. It is the positing of this false moral equivalency that has permitted anti-Semitism to fester and explode across the world since October 7, 2023. It also diminishes the meaning of genocide and those who were brutally murdered in past genocides. The accusation of genocide against Israel is not only wrong, but it is morally reprehensible. We should muster the courage to push back against such a fallacious libel that is not only causing harm to the Jewish people, but making it that much more difficult to do real work for human rights.