Saying “I need ___” is not automatically a valid claim to have a right to that ___.

Trump thinks it is, at least when he says it. If anybody says “I need” about something of his, of course that’s not a valid claim to have a right to it.

 Trump insisted that the United States “needs Greenland” on Wednesday, hours before the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory, met with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House.

It doesn’t matter whether or not the US “needs” Greenland. It can’t have it. Trump can’t have it. Nobody can have it. Countries aren’t party favors or ice cream cones or bunches of flowers. They’re not inanimate objects of slight value that people can bestow on each other.