Featured Image Credit: NBC
Topics: Donald Trump, Greenland, JD Vance, Politics
Jess Battison
Just when you thought he’d gotten distracted with everything else he’s been spouting out and getting busy with, Donald Trump has doubled down on one of his other goals.
The US President has issued a major military threat to Greenland after targeting it for quite some time.
Since he returned to office, he’s gone in hard on the idea of his country expanding into the island and autonomous territory within Denmark. This hasn’t exactly gone down well with most Greenlanders, with his Vice President JD Vance previously getting a frosty response on his controversial visit.
Trump has previously claimed the US wants the territory for ‘international security’ and world peace’.
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However, his latest comments don’t exactly suggest the most peaceful way of going about it, as he says America needs Greenland ‘very badly’.
Leaders in both Denmark and Greenland have made it pretty clear they’re against the idea of the US taking the territory.
And in an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday (4 May), Trump was asked about his willingness to use his military to forcefully take it.
“I don’t rule it out,” he said. “I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that.
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“But we need that for international security.”
This NBC interview looked at various parts of his presidency and plans, following his first 100-days in office last week.
And it delved into his similar claims to take control of Canada. At the end of last year, before he was sworn into office, Trump proposed the shocking idea that the country could become the 51st state of the US.
He admitted to host Kristen Welker that using military force to do that wouldn’t be best right now.
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“Well, I think we're not going to ever get to that point. It could happen. Something could happen with Greenland. I'll be honest, we need that for national and international security,” Trump said.
As Welker pressed: “But not with Canada?”
“It's highly unlikely. I don't see it with Canada,' he said. “I just don't see it, I have to be honest with you.”
Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, and around 90 percent of Canadians oppose the idea of it becoming a part of the US but Trump says he’s always open to the discussion.
“I’ll always talk about that. You know why? We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200bn a year,” he said. “We don’t need their cars. In fact, we don’t want their cars. We don’t need their energy. We don’t even want their energy. We have more than they do. We don’t want their lumber. We have great lumber. All I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics.”