Donald Trump and his team are looking into “a range of options” in an effort to acquire Greenland, noting in a White House statement on Tuesday that using the US military to do so is “always an option”.
“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Leavitt’s comments came as the leaders of major European powers pushed back against Trump’s desire to seek an American takeover of the arctic territory. The US president has renewed calls for the US to seize Greenland following the dark-of-night arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, over the weekend.
Trump on Sunday said that he needed Greenland “very badly”, prompting a ramping up of tensions among the US, the semi-autonomous Danish territory and Europe.
Greenland has repeatedly stated that it does not want to be part of the US. The idea is also unpopular in the US, where one poll found just 7% of Americans agree with a military seizure of Greenland.
At a news conference in Paris, the ITV correspondent James Mates asked Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, who touted new commitments from the Trump administration to defend Ukraine: “What value do these commitments have on the very day that at the highest levels of government in Washington they are talking about seizing the sovereign territory of a fellow Nato member?”
Starmer said that he stood by the statement he made on Monday, when he said that “Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark must determine the future of Greenland and nobody else”.
In an earlier interview with CNN, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller claimed military intervention would not be needed to take over the island because “nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland”.
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