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U.S. President Donald Trump called Greenland “a piece of ice” that he wants to buy. He promised not to seize the island by force.
This was reported during the American leader’s speech at the World Economic Forum.
Why Trump wants Greenland
Trump said that Greenland is a key strategic location between the United States, Russia, and China and that it is insufficiently protected.
“There are no important minerals there, there are no important resources there. And to get to those resources, you would have to go through enormous layers of ice. For us, Greenland is important from a strategic security standpoint — national and international security. It could be the northern frontier; we are the northern frontier of Western civilization,”
the president believes.
He added that in 2019 Denmark “promised” to spend more than 200 million dollars on Greenland’s defense, but in reality allegedly spent no more than 9% of the declared amount.
“We want a piece of ice to protect the world, and they won’t give it to us. We never asked for anything else. We could have kept this piece of land for ourselves, but we didn’t do that. So they have a choice. You can say ‘yes,’ and we will be very grateful to you, or you can say ‘no,’ and we will remember it,”
the president assured.
He believes that only the United States “can protect this enormous territory, this enormous piece of ice,” so that Europe and the entire West will be safe.
“That’s why I want to once again discuss the issue of the United States purchasing Greenland,”
Trump said.
Use of force
Separately, the U.S. president complained that he is doing too much for NATO, while America is now getting too little in return.
“Maybe we won’t get it, unless I decide to resort to greater force, and then we will just be relentless. But I won’t do that, I don’t want to do that. Okay? And people will think, oh, phew, thank God. This is probably the biggest statement I want to make here, because people think I’m going to resort to force, but no, I’m not going to do that,”
he assured.
According to Trump, Greenland had already “been” part of the United States, but it was returned to Denmark after Nazi Germany was defeated during World War II.
Trump and Greenland
As a reminder, U.S. President Donald Trump has recently been speaking very frequently about how much he needs Greenland. He explains this by national security concerns.
At the same time, a few weeks ago White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the president is discussing several scenarios with his team for acquiring Greenland. According to her, the use of the military is not excluded.
