President Donald Trump no longer resorts to implicit talk about his desire to control the island of Greenland, but rather says explicitly: “We need the island belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark,” under the pretext of national security considerations.
A day after the American attack on Venezuela, President Donald Trump renewed his calls yesterday, Sunday, to annex Greenland, the island belonging to Denmark. He said in statements to reporters: “We need it,” under the pretext of protecting American national security interests, describing the region as “full of Russian and Chinese ships.”
Map of Greenland with the American flag
Also, Katie Miller, a right-wing podcast host and former assistant in the Trump administration, who is married to the president’s senior policy advisor, Stephen Miller, posted on her account on the “X” platform a map of Greenland covered with the American flag, after the American attack on Venezuela, and wrote on it a comment: “Soon.”
The operation carried out by US forces at dawn on Saturday in Caracas, and Trump’s statements on Sunday, raised concerns in Denmark, which has sovereignty over the vast, mineral-rich island of Greenland.
In a statement, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen confirmed that Trump “does not have the right to annex Greenland.” She also recalled that Denmark grants the United States, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), broad powers to access Greenland under existing security agreements.
“I therefore strongly urge the United States to desist from threatening a close historic ally, another country and a people that have made it abundantly clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Trump mocks Denmark over Greenland
A post on social media angered the Danes, with Trump on Sunday mocking Denmark’s efforts to bolster Greenland’s national security, saying the Danes had added a “dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
The anger of Greenlanders and Danes increased due to the post of Katie Miller, a former official in the Trump administration, which showed an illustrative map of Greenland in the colors of the American flag.
“Yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s top envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff.
Greenland has been of interest to Trump since his return to the presidency
The Associated Press says that during his presidential transition, after winning the 2024 elections, and in the first months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for US sovereignty over Greenland, and did not explicitly rule out the use of military force to control this mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island belonging to a US ally.
The issue had largely receded from the headlines in recent months, before Trump brought it back into the spotlight less than two weeks ago when he announced that he would appoint Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said that, in his volunteer position, he would help Trump “make Greenland part of the United States.”
