Nuuk: US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that NATO should help the US acquire Greenland and anything less than American control is unacceptable, hours before Vice President JD Vance was to host Danish and Greenlandic officials for talks.
In a post on his social media site, Trump reiterated his argument that the US “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise Russia or China would — “AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”
“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, is at the centre of a geopolitical storm as Trump insists he wants to own it — and residents of its capital, Nuuk, say it isn’t for sale. The White House hasn’t ruled out taking the Arctic island by force.
Vance is to meet Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington later Wednesday to discuss Greenland.
Along the narrow, snow-covered main street in Nuuk, international journalists and camera crews have been stopping passersby every few metres asking them for their thoughts on a crisis which Denmark’s prime minister has warned could potentially trigger the end of NATO. Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told The Associated Press in Nuuk that she hoped American officials would get the message to “back off.” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark.”