So, Mr. Landry is going to Nuuk, as part of Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s larger foreign policy goals that risk driving purveyors of conventional wisdom and unimaginative analysts and journalists to the brink of madness.

Louisiana’s GOP governor was appointed special envoy to Greenland late last year, and he says he’s going to make a trip there in a couple of months to rap with Greenlanders about how independence leading to closer association with the U.S. can make their lives better. In fact, he’s been invited to the world’s largest dogsledding event (although if he pilots a sled, beware).

That must irk Danish authorities a bit, especially as they can’t stop Landry from visiting and spreading this gospel. With Greenland existing as an autonomous entity loosely associated with Denmark and, as part of the 2009 revisions to that status, it gained the ability to admit nationals of other states without Danish oversight. In essence, Landry will argue that an association deal Greenland and its roughly 57,000 residents could secure with the U.S. would surpass what Denmark does and could provide.

Those revisions include a path to independence, which Denmark must negotiate in good faith. Indeed, a majority of Greenlanders want independence – roughly double the proportion who want to maintain the status quo. And even if living standards would drop somewhat as a result – which undoubtedly would not occur if the U.S. signaled it would match, if not exceed, current Danish aid (about a fifth of Greenland’s revenue) in the event of independence – support still runs about 50/50 among those expressing a preference.

But when this survey came out a year ago, almost all worldwide coverage focused on a single result: that an overwhelming majority of Greenlanders did not want to become part of the U.S. Why wouldn’t that be the case? They would have less independence than they enjoy now. However, that isn’t the issue—even if the Trump administration occasionally floats the idea and refuses to categorically rule out military force.

There are two things about Trump’s foreign policy that the ossified foreign policy complexes – which include governments involved in it, the media covering it, and academics studying it almost as participants – seem incapable of understanding, rendering them unable to form a coherent or valid interpretation.

First, Trump practices maximal strategic ambiguity, floating a dizzying amount of options to keep his allies and (especially) adversaries guessing about his intentions and potential actions, leaving him maximum latitude to act and others maximally unbalanced in potential response.

Second, and most relevant to a media and academy infused with leftism, no president has ever come close to Trump’s ability to yank their chains. He delights in provoking obsession over his every word and deed, particularly when they take the bait on something extreme (at least to them) that he utters. Countless times he has induced them to exhaust enormous resources into taking seriously, endlessly recounting, analyzing, and fretting to no end over remarks he made. If nothing else, this serves as a massive distraction, diverting attention from more basic, nuts-and-bolts actions on his part that ultimately pull the rug out from under leftist shibboleths before these nattering nabobs can react.

The Greenland verbal diarrhea issued from these sectors provides a perfect example. No, Trump isn’t seriously going to make Greenland a part of the U.S. and especially not by force; no, he’s not going to buy it because he knows Denmark won’t sell; no, he’s not flush with hubris about a updated Monroe Doctrine (remember, Greenland isn’t in Europe, but part of North America). Rather, he wants a parlay to succeeding with foreign policy goals that all other presidents have tried and failed to accomplish beginning in 1959, 1979, etc. (And how is it that almost all of U.S. and European media miss this, yet Israeli TV gets it?)

In fact, why would Trump want to materially alter the U.S. relationship with Greenland? American companies already enjoy substantial access to Greenland’s mineral deposits – albeit ones notoriously difficult to exploit – and the U.S. effectively has unlimited ability to deploy military forces there. How would that materially change if Greenland became independent and then entered into an association with the U.S. similar to its current arrangement with Denmark, or even with a looser attachment?

Trump’s endgame may not even require that. All this talk, and Landry’s dispatch, may simply be a way of signaling to Denmark and the European Union that they must step up security for Greenland and accelerate development of strategic minerals. Enticing Greenland may be a ploy to urging Denmark and the EU to get on the stick on these matters or else the U.S. will curry Greenlandic favor as a method of achieving ends that, quite actually, all parties involved desire.

Maybe Landry, who shares Trump’s policy preferences on a wide range of matters, will have a little snicker when he sees how his trip to come jacks up more wheels – and how much satisfaction it yields down the road if Trump’s gambit succeeds.