President Donald Trump argued on Sunday that Greenland’s defensive capability amounts to “two dog sleds,” so the United States must acquire the strategically valuable Arctic territory to protect it from Russia and China.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night that he has not yet made a monetary offer to Denmark for the acquisition of Greenland, but Greenland should be eager for the Danes to sell the territory to America, because “Greenland does not want to see Russia or China take over.”
“Basically, their defense is two dog sleds. You know that? You know what their defense is? Two dog sleds,” he said. “In the meantime, you have Russian destroyers and submarines, and China destroyers and submarines all over the place.”
“We’re not going to let that happen, and if it affects NATO, then it affects NATO. But, you know, they need us more than we need them, I will tell you that right now,” Trump said, alluding to the resistance expressed by European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to his effort to acquire Greenland.
WATCH — Trump: Greenland Isn’t Optional — And Europe Knows It:
Trump said it would be “easier” to make a peaceable and mutually beneficial deal, but he is determined to take control “one way or the other.”
“If we don’t take Greenland, Russia or China will take Greenland, and I’m not gonna let that happen. I’d love to make a deal with them, it’s easier. But one way or the other, we’re gonna have Greenland,” he said.
Greenland continues to resist Trump’s overtures. On Friday, Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen repeated his position that the island has no wish to become a permanent part of the United States, Denmark, or any other country.
“We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” said a joint statement from Greenland’s five major political parties.
“We would like to emphasize once again our desire for the U.S.’s disdain for our country to end,” the statement added.
Greenland has long been administered as a semi-autonomous possession of Denmark, having boasted its own parliament since 1979. It gained greater autonomy through a “self-government” law passed in 2009, along with the option to hold a referendum on independence. Polls generally show that Greenlanders would like to become independent, although they disagree on the timetable, and they are reluctant to lose the enormous financial support they receive from Denmark for their social services.
Pro-independence lawmaker Aaja Chemnitz, one of Greenland’s two representatives in the Danish parliament, told CNBC on Monday that Greenlanders want to “make sure that we’re not dehumanized, which I think we have been in this whole situation.”
“Greenland never has been for sale and never will be for sale. The people are resilient. And I think it’s important to remember that, of course, you can’t buy a country, but you can also not buy a population,” she said.
“We say nothing about us without us — and that’s why it’s important for us to still fight for making sure that we have even more autonomy in the time to come,” she said.
While European leaders remain strongly opposed to America purchasing or annexing Greenland, some have begun admitting that Trump has a point about the vulnerability of the sparsely populated and lightly defended Arctic territory being vulnerable to aggressive powers, particularly Russia.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told Trump last week that “more could be done to protect” the Arctic and “deter an increasingly aggressive Russia in the High North.” NATO chief Mark Rutte said the alliance is “working on the next steps to make sure that, indeed, we collective protect what is at stake here.”
On Saturday, Reuters published some on how Trump’s seemingly Ahab-like obsession with taking Greenland has sharply illuminated some important debates that have been ignored for too long, such as Greenland’s light defenses against foreign aggression – which could grow even lighter if the Greenlanders make good on their long-expressed desire to win independence from Denmark.
Denmark, meanwhile, suddenly finds itself fighting to keep a territory it had seemed resigned to letting go, albeit very, very slowly. Greenland is still strategically important to the Danes as their sole presence in the Arctic, but much less important than it was in the Cold War, and the financial cost of keeping Greenland on-side has grown heavy for Copenhagen.
“Denmark risks exhausting its foreign policy capital to secure Greenland, only to watch it walk away afterwards,” University of Copenhagen political science professor Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen observed.
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