President Donald Trump told world leaders and elites in his speech at Davos, Switzerland, that the United States is the only nation in a position to “secure Greenland.”
Trump, who has contended that it is imperative for the security of the West for America to acquire Greenland, said that while NATO allies have a duty to defend their territories, the United States is the lone country that can defend Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark.
“Every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory, and the fact is, no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States. We’re a great power, much greater than people even understand,” he said.
He then reminded the world of U.S. efforts to defend Greenland during World War II:
We saw this in World War II, when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself or Greenland. So the United States was then compelled. We did it. We felt an obligation to do it, to send our own forces to hold the Greenland territory and hold it we did, at great cost and expense. They didn’t have a chance of getting on it, and they tried. Denmark knows that. We literally set up bases on Greenland for Denmark. We fought for Denmark. We weren’t fighting for anyone else. We were fighting to save it for Denmark.
Trump added that if it were not for the United States, the West would “be speaking German and a little Japanese” and noted the United States “gave Greenland back to Denmark” after the war.
“How stupid were we to do that… but we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now?” he added.
National security threats are now greater than they ever were before, including the dangers of missiles, nuclear weapons, and “weapons of warfare that I can’t even talk about,” Trump stated.
He referenced operation Absolute Resolve, which the United States carried out in Venezuela to capture former dictator Nicolás Maduro, as an example of the advent of novel weapons in the use of military operations:
Two weeks ago, they saw weapons that nobody ever heard of. They weren’t able to fire one shot at us. They said, ‘What happened?’ Everything was discombobulated. They said, ‘We’ve got them in our sights,’ press the trigger, and nothing happened. No anti-aircraft missiles went up. There was one that went up about 30 feet and crashed down right next to the people that sent it. They said, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Those defensive systems were made by Russia and by China. So they’re going to go back to the drawing boards, I guess.
Trump further noted that his desire to acquire Greenland is not about rare earth minerals, but about “strategic national security and international security,” adding that the mass is part of North America:
This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America, on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere. That’s our territory. It is therefore a core national security interest of the United States of America, and in fact, it’s been our policy for hundreds of years to prevent outside threats from entering our hemisphere, and we’ve done it very successfully. We’ve never been stronger than we are now. That’s why American presidents have sought to purchase Greenland for nearly two centuries in.
Later in his speech, Trump said he would not use “force” to acquire Greenland.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump said.
“That’s probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, where we already had it as a trustee,” he added.
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