Davos, Jan 21 (.) US President Donald Trump, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, has ruled out acquiring Greenland by force, adding that the US would be “unstoppable” if it did.
“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. OK? Now everyone’s saying ‘oh, good.’ That’s probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. 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,” he said, clearly outlining his administration’s plans.
The US added that he was “seeking immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland.
He asserted that the United States needed to own Greenland, giving some more explanation for his reasoning. “You need the ownership to defend it,” Trump said. “You can’t defend it on a lease. Number one, legally it’s not defensible in that way, totally. And psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease?”
“All we want from Denmark for national and international security and to keep our very energetic and dangerous potential enemies at bay is this land on which we’re going to build the greatest golden dome ever built,” he said, referring to his plans for a missile defense system on Greenland.
He lashed out at Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying the US would use ownership of Greenland to defend the neighboring country. “Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful, but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful.”
Trump said he has “tremendous respect” for the people of Greenland and Denmark, but argued every NATO ally should be able to defend its own territory, and said that “no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States.”
He said the US “and the world faces much greater risk than it did before, because of missiles, because of nuclear, because of weapons of warfare that I can’t even talk about.”
Trump dismissed the notion that the US wants Greenland for rare earth materials.
“This enormous, unsecured island is actually part of North America, on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere, that’s our territory,” he said.
He also slammed NATO.
“The United States is treated very unfairly by NATO,” Trump said. “We give so much, and we get so little in return.” The president cited the war in Ukraine as an example of his problem with the seven-decade old transatlantic defense alliance.
“We are thousands of miles away, separated by a giant ocean. It’s a war that never should have started,” he said on Ukraine.
“What does the United States get out of all this work, all this money, other than death, destruction and massive amounts of cash going to people who don’t appreciate what we do … I’m talking about NATO and I’m talking about Europe,” Trump said.
On Saturday, Trump said he would impose 10% tariffs on Denmark and seven other European nations until a deal is struck for America’s acquisition of Greenland.
The US President has linked acquiring Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year, in a text message Sunday to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. The Norwegian leader released his text message exchange with Trump under Norway’s public disclosure laws, his press office said.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump said in the message.
Norway was one of the countries hit with the new tariffs, which would kick in Feb. 1, according to a post Trump wrote on his social media platform.
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