Critical State: Fallout from Nuuk to Caracas after US Kidnapping of Maduro

Miranda Bryant at The Guardian reports on President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, intensifying US pressure on Denmark by questioning its sovereignty over Greenland and dismissing the need for military force.

The calls to take control of Greenland after a US operation in Venezuela that saw special forces abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to New York for a trial under US law on drug charges.

In a CNN interview, Miller said there was “no need to even think or talk about” military action because “nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” He challenged Denmark’s claim, asking, “What right does Denmark have to assert control over Greenland?” and argued that “obviously Greenland should be part of the US” to secure NATO interests in the Arctic.

The talk alarmed European leaders. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said “[e]nough is enough” and told Trump to give up his “fantasies about annexation.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that a US attack would mean the end of NATO.

France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the UK publicly backed Denmark, stating, “Greenland belongs to its people.”

If You Read One More Thing: Yesterday’s Enemy

For The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner examines the implications of the US removing Maduro from power and signaling openness to working with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez.

• Although the US has supported potential successors in the past, including Juan Guaidó and, most recently, opposition leader María Corina Machado, Trump has sidelined Machado and complimented Rodríguez, the daughter of a Marxist guerrilla and a longtime critic of the US.

• Kuttner writes that a likely proposed deal could offer recognition, sanctions relief, drug cooperation, elections, oil investment restoring production, and plans enabling Venezuelan émigrés’ return home.

• Such a deal could give Rodríguez and Trump a victory. He could “claim that the military exfiltration operated like clockwork; that he rid Venezuela of a widely detested dictator who ran the economy into the ground; and that he brought greater stability, a modicum of greater liberty, and an economic revival.”

The View from Moscow

Eva Hartog at Politico writes that Donald Trump’s capture of Maduro exposes the weakness of Vladimir Putin’s claimed “multipolar” alliance system, adding that Trump’s action shows Putin is “not a dependable ally when the chips are down,” echoing failures in Nagorno‑Karabakh, Syria, and Iran.

• Political analyst Abbas Gallyamov says that “Putin must be unbearably jealous,” adding, “What Putin promised to do in Ukraine, Trump did in half an hour.” Russian nationalist Igor Girkin wrote, “We’ve suffered another blow to our image.”

• The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the raid as “an unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of an independent state,” while pro‑Kremlin voices admitted envy.

• Some Russians have argued Trump’s Caracas actions discarded international law, justifying Moscow’s conduct, while others believe he followed Monroe Doctrine regional dominance.

• Gallyamov concludes that “Putin himself created a world where the only thing that matters is success,” and now “Putin’s humiliation is obvious for everyone to see.”

Deep Dive: Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists Turning a Buck with Crypto

In a recent report, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) has documented a new trend of extremist actors increasingly exploiting cryptocurrency markets to spread hate, launder ideology, and generate significant personal profit.

The report, “The Trump Administration Embraces Cryptocurrency, ‘Meme Coins’ Spread Hate and Enrich Their Creators,” finds that so‑called “meme coins” — cryptocurrencies created as jokes or viral stunts — have become a lucrative vehicle for far‑right propaganda, Nazi symbolism, and racist messaging, particularly as the Trump administration embraces crypto‑friendly policies.

Those engaged in illegal activity have long used cryptocurrencies for transactions, and extremists have used them for fundraising. But now, with the spread of meme coins, they’re also using them for messaging.

GPAHE documents how creators launched meme coins featuring explicit neo‑Nazi imagery, including the Black Sun symbol, antisemitic slogans, and references to far‑right figures such as Nick Fuentes and his Groyper movement. These coins have circulated openly on major platforms like Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which processes billions of dollars in daily trading volume. Major cryptocurrency platforms continue to profit from extremist content despite having policies that prohibit hate.

“These rules are clear, but the availability of extremist content on Binance demonstrates a serious lack of policy enforcement,” the report explains.

Support Inkstick

The investigation shows that meme coin creators have capitalized on viral political moments, including racist or inflammatory posts by US government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Extremist developers have rapidly minted coins tied to these moments, driving speculative trading and social media engagement. In one case, a coin called $FRANKLIN used AI‑generated violent and bigoted imagery surrounding the Trump administration’s targeting of boats off the coast of Venezuela to attract attention, briefly reaching a market capitalization exceeding $24 million before collapsing.

GPAHE explains that meme coin platforms such as pump.fun have incentivized this behavior through revenue‑sharing schemes. Creators earn cryptocurrency payouts based on trading volume, receiving hundreds or thousands of dollars once their coins cross specific thresholds. The report has also found that some extremist coin creators have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting these systems, even when their projects were short‑lived or overtly hateful.

The report highlights Binance’s use of artificial intelligence to generate automated summaries of listed coins. GPAHE found that these AI summaries often sanitized or misrepresented extremist content, describing neo‑Nazi tokens as “innovation” while omitting references to hate symbols embedded in their branding. Binance continued to profit from these trades by collecting transaction fees, effectively monetizing extremist activity, according to the report.

GPAHE places the rise of extremist meme coins within a broader crypto culture that has long tolerated misogyny, racism, and conspiracy theories. Binance permits users to buy and sell coins that reference neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. One such coin is called “The Groyper” coin, a reference to his fanbase and followers.

The report cites research linking the male‑dominated tech and finance sectors to “rampant bigotry,” noting that crypto spaces have frequently normalized extremist language under the guise of free speech or decentralization.

In May 2025, investigators found that dozens of attendees at a Trump‑branded meme coin dinner held crypto assets featuring swastikas, antisemitic references, and racial slurs.

The investigation emphasized that cryptocurrency’s largely unregulated nature allowed extremist actors to operate with minimal oversight. Unlike traditional financial systems, crypto platforms lacked consistent enforcement mechanisms, enabling hate‑based projects to proliferate rapidly before disappearing or rebranding.

Check Out Inkstick Merch

One popular meme coin platform, Pump.fun, “has no safeguards against extremism and hateful ideologies” in its user agreements that govern conduct on its platform. Pump.fun “prohibits the ‘glorification of or encouragement of acts which would cause harm to others or significant harm to property’ along with ‘any content or activity supporting or promoting terrorism or violent extremism’” in its Livestream Moderation Policy, but these do not apply to their meme coins, according to the report.

GPAHE warns that this volatility does not reduce harm, as creators have often cashed out early while leaving investors and communities exposed.

Ultimately, GPAHE concluded that the crypto ecosystem had become a profitable pipeline for extremist radicalization.

Meme coins functioned not only as financial instruments but also as recruitment tools, embedding hate symbols into viral online culture and exposing younger users to extremist ideology, the report concluded.

Show Us the Receipts

At Inkstick, Taylor Barnes and Sophie Hurwitz have interviewed arms industry researcher William D. Hartung about the United States entering its first year of a trillion‑dollar military budget despite public pressure to address domestic affordability crises. President Donald Trump’s second‑term defense spending contradicted campaign promises to end “forever wars” and rein in the military‑industrial complex. The budget exceeded Cold War peaks and comes close to post‑9/11 heights, even without large‑scale ground wars. Hartung explained how contractors, missile defense programs — like the functionally impossible Golden Dome — and emerging tech firms stand to benefit. And “even the hawks didn’t believe they could hit a trillion, but now they view this as a floor,” according to Hartung.

In an excerpt from his new book, Julian Hattem explores how refugees fleeing armed conflict increasingly faced compounding threats from climate‑driven disasters. Three‑quarters of the world’s forcibly displaced people live in countries highly vulnerable to climate change, leaving refugee settlements exposed to floods, cyclones, and extreme heat — aside from the violence they fled and continue to face. Hattem illustrated this dynamic through the experience of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, who escaped genocidal violence in Myanmar only to endure deadly storms in fragile camps. He also takes a look at Syria, where prolonged drought intensified social pressures that preceded the country’s 14-year civil war. The piece argues that climate change has magnified conflict drivers, strained host communities, and tested governments’ capacity to protect displaced populations.

At The World, Joshua Coe reports on Swedish tobacco companies promoting snus and nicotine pouches as safer alternatives to smoking while young people increasingly drive sales. The article describes how products like Zyn have gained popularity through social media, particularly TikTok, where influencers have normalized their use. Coe explains that companies have framed Sweden’s low smoking rates as proof of harm reduction, calling it the “Swedish Experience.” However, public health experts have challenged that narrative, arguing traditional tobacco control policies play a larger role.

Support Inkstick

Now that we are in the new year, we have wrapped up our annual NewsMatch fundraising campaign. We want to thank everyone who chipped in to support Inkstick’s nonprofit newsroom. Every buck goes a long way toward helping us keep our reporting going.

For anyone who missed the NewsMatch cutoff but would still like to support Inkstick, there are several ways. We accept one-time donations and recurring monthly support year round. We also make a sum off any of the snazzy Inkstick swag you purchase from our merch store. As always, any support you can offer will go directly toward our reporting. And if financial support isn’t something you can swing, then we’d love it if you shared our articles anywhere you are on social media.

Critical State is written by Inkstick Media in collaboration with The World.

The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news, and insights from PRX and GBH.

With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.