Daft diplomacy

Foreign Minister Ian Borg has said he won’t rush into a position on Trump’s Greenland threats.

Borg won’t rush into reaffirming a fundamental principle of the UN Charter, enshrined in Article 2(1): Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

He couldn’t possibly declare that strong countries with massive military power shouldn’t simply seize territory belonging to other countries. No, no, that’s too presumptuous.

“I ask why Malta should be presumptuous and be the first to pronounce itself (on Greenland),” Borg said. He had no such qualms with being presumptuous when he was the first and only EU foreign minister to brag that he had nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump, who told the world at the Davos Economic Forum, “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable”. 

He threatened Europe over Greenland. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember”. 

He repeatedly warned America’s longtime European allies and fellow NATO members over possible American military intervention over Greenland, saying, “I don’t rule it out… it could happen”.

That’s certainly not the language of a peacemaker, surely not the kind of rhetoric you expect from a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, backed by Borg.  

Trump has a long history of threatening, intimidating and inflammatory rhetoric.

“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them”.

He’d also previously threatened North Korea’s Kim Jong Un with  “fire and fury” and to “hit them hard”.

He’s fulfilled his promise to “hit all the boats” in Venezuela and followed that up with a full-scale military operation in the country, bombing infrastructure, suppressing air defences, killing hundreds and abducting Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

He threatened that “a second military strike was possible” if Venezuela’s new president did not do what he demanded.

Ian Borg’s nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize politely sent a message “to all Houthi terrorists. YOUR TIME IS UP..IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON THEM LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE”.

Despite his reputation for being a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), Trump actually followed up on at least some of his threats of military action. Apart from Venezuela, he’s bombed Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq and Iran. That’s not bad for a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

Trump has now set up a ‘Board of Peace’ and invited warmonger Vladimir Putin to sit on it.

He’s also welcomed President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan, the man who ordered his security forces to his own people “kill without warning” for protesting a doubling in price of gas and his rampant corruption.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who oversaw mass arbitrary arrests, targeted persecution of journalists, enforced disappearances, torture and deaths of political prisoners through deliberate medical neglect, will also sit on Trump’s peace board.  

Those who, like French President Emanuel Macron, turned down Trump’s invitation were targeted for Trump’s abuse: “Nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon…what I’ll do is…I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he’ll join”. 

This is the man Borg sucked up to. Minister Borg chooses restraint and caution when defending international principles of justice.

He takes a step back, not wanting to be presumptuous about taking a stand for what is right.

Yet he doesn’t think twice before making an utter fool of himself, and his country, by nominating for the Nobel Peace Prize the man who’s the biggest threat to world peace, months after the closing date for nominations.

Reuters mocked Borg as only Reuters knows how. On 9 October 2025, Reuters reported that “The foreign minister of European Union member state Malta… had nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize”. But swiftly pointed out that “the deadline for nominations for each year’s Nobel prizes is 31 January”.  

By then, Trump had only been in post for a few days. His contribution to the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan (Borg’s pretext for nominating him), had not even started, let alone materialised.

If Borg wrote to the Nobel Peace Prize committee  in October, as he claimed, he was nine months late. That “nomination” was just a humiliating act of sycophancy.

That sort of grovelling doesn’t further Malta’s interests. It invites ridicule and mockery.

It attracts derision from our European fellow member states – except Orban’s Hungary. It shines a spotlight on the level of bootlicking and slimy ingratiation in which the Maltese government is ready to engage.

That’s not just revolting, it’s catastrophic for our national interest. It identifies Malta as an unreliable and untrustworthy player on the international stage.

Borg has tarnished the country’s reputation for years to come. Malta will be seen as the country that nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, months late, but yet reluctant to declare support for Denmark’s territorial integrity.

Who wants such a country as an ally?

Trump has insisted that he will get Greenland, the easy way or the hard way. Trump’s administration discussed offering Greenlanders $100,000 each to encourage them to break with Denmark and align with the US.

Trump even offered to buy Greenland from Denmark, an offer that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dismissed, calling it “absurd”.  His obscene offers were rejected. 

If Trump wanted to buy Malta, the response may have been very different with Borg and Prime Minister Robert Abela at the helm.

Abela has now indicated that he has not ruled out joining Trump’s Board of Peace, although he’s already backpedalling.

The lifelong chairman of that esteemed institution will be that very peaceful man who’s already bombed nine countries, amassed a powerful armada in the Persian Gulf, and who’s ominously renamed his Department of Defense as the Department of War.