The USA, not Denmark, should control Greenland, U.S. President Donald Trump said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, threatening to “remove” U.S. troops in Europe.
“Greenland doesn’t help Denmark. Denmark doesn’t spend money to actually help Greenland, nevertheless it’s a very important part for the US,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The island was “surrounded by China ships and Russian ships,” Trump said, adding that Greenland “needs to be controlled by the US, not by Denmark.”
“We could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe,” he added.
Trump’s assertions that the U.S. must acquire or control Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, have long strained relations between Washington and Copenhagen — each founding NATO members — and, more broadly, U.S. ties with Europe. The difficulty has since moved to a diplomatic track.
The diplomatic standoff over Greenland escalated in December, when Trump said the U.S. “has to have” Greenland for “national security.”
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Tensions rose further in January throughout the World Economic Summit in Davos in January, when NATO allies, including Canada, expressed solidarity with Greenland and Denmark.
When asked by a reporter how far he would go to accumulate Greenland, Trump said, “You’ll discover.”
Nonetheless, during his speech on the World Economic Forum, he ruled out the usage of force.
Hours later, also speaking in Ankara, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she expected allies to respect the sovereignty of the Danish kingdom and accept that Greenland was not on the market.
“It’s a well known position of the US that it desires to own and take over Greenland. I hope that it’s equally well-known in all places that this just isn’t going to occur,” Frederiksen said.
She added that there have been no plans to debate issues in regards to the High North, the Arctic or Greenland while in Akara.
Greenland’s Foreign Minister Mute Egede said in a post on Facebook that Greenland’s future needs to be decided by its people.
“That’s the way it has all the time been. And that’s the way it all the time might be,” he said, adding that Greenland should proceed close co-operation with its allies.
Trump said the problem of control over Greenland had harmed U.S. ties with NATO.
“That’s what hurt my relationship with NATO,” he said.
“They (Denmark) wouldn’t go together with it, and with all the cash we spend to assist them with Russia.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in June that conversations with Denmark and Greenland were continuing on a monthly basis.
–With files from The Canadian Press
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